Halloween World: World Wide Weird
by Oriko
Summary: When everything changes you've still got to keep going. Part of spaceman's Halloween-verse.
1. Where the wild things are

Disclaimer: If you recognize it, it isn't mine.

The effects of the Halloween event were all encompassing, with many unexpected consequences. Some of them were good, a lot of them were bad and a fair few were somewhere in the middle. The monsters and not-quite-natural disasters didn't just affect the world's human population, they affected everything. Species that had been thriving before Halloween were driven to the edge of extinction while at the same time new ones were thrust into existence. Some were the products of fiction, folklore and myth, with many of them making up the ranks of the transformed, but others came into being through different, slightly subtler means. Creatures whose existence had long straddled the line between myth and reality, the cryptozoological beasts became undeniable facts of the new reality.

Some species were entirely the creation collective subconscious, creatures whose imagined existence was so pervasive in human minds that they were almost thought of as real and became so on Halloween. In other cases, animals that were long extinct were brought back into a world that was very different from the one they'd departed, the resurrections fuelled by many people's hope and belief in their continued survival despite all evidence to the contrary, and the sheer imagination of thousands of others.

In Suffolk, a group attempting to take refuge in a church found themselves under attack from a huge black hound with flaming eyes. In Somerset, the sole survivor of a caravan attacked by monsters found that their desperate journey through the haunted countryside became a good deal easier with the arrival of a black dog that kept the horrors at bay and guided them to safety. Elsewhere, convoys travelling between colonies heard the distant cries of British Big Cats.

In Scotland, the existence of the Loch Ness Monster became a fact of life for those that continued to live in the region, with the animal being sighted every few days. Whether or not there was more then one was unknown. In Ireland and other parts of Scotland, there were regular sightings of the shape-shifting but usually horse-like kelpie, while the medics in a colony near the coast of county Mayo found themselves in the unusual position of tending to a badly injured selkie.

In southern France, groups of survivors were terrorized by the large wolf-like animal known as the Beast of Gévaudan. More widespread was the harmless, deer-like Dahu, which was seen throughout France and Switzerland and in northern Italy, and which proved to be relatively easy prey for monsters and hungry humans alike.

In a small village in Mexico, the inhabitants had to contend with their already depleted number of livestock being attacked by a hairless creature which drained 

them of blood and which was easily identified as the Chupacabra.

In North America, sightings of the Jersey Devil became a common occurrence in New Jersey and Pennsylvania, although there were less then a handful of attacks. Less fortunate were the inhabitants of isolated parts of the northern USA and Canada who seldom dared to travel for fear of the wendingo.

In Australia, years of winding-up gullible tourists came back to bite them in the behind with the forests and woodland acquiring an additional danger in the form of the Drop Bear. On the other hand, there was something of a success story in Tasmania and a few parts of mainland Australia, with captured and tamed specimens of the formerly extinct Thylacine being employed as watchdogs, a role in which they excelled, giving vocal warning of approaching threats long before any of the dogs. The species' triumphant return provided a rare bright spot in the never ending darkness; it's usefulness to humans ensuring its continued existence.

As the effects of the Red Sky event continued to be felt around the world, no one knew what the future would be, but one thing was for sure. Everything was going to be very different.


	2. Red and White

Disclaimer: If you recognise it, it's not mine.

A/N: Virtual cookies to anyone who spots the crossovers. Concrit welcome.

The Halloween event affected various parts of the world differently. In the USA, the chief result was legions of people who were transformed into their costumes or just characters that they had the mixed fortune of resembling in some way, with the products of folklore and forteana taking second place. In the UK, the time difference meant that there were very few people in costume when the spell was cast, not to mention that the day had rather lower significance in British culture. There were still those who were transformed, for one reason or another, but they were greatly out numbered by things which owed their origins to history and legend. Britain's long and often bloody history, as well as a rich and complex folklore transformed the once green and pleasant land into a haunted isle, where ghosts filled the cities and the beings of folklore and Celtic mythology ruled the countryside. London was torn to shreds, as the setting for countless works of fiction of all varieties its fate was sealed, even without the numerous ghosts and supernatural horrors, the Below suffering slightly less then the Above.

In the north of England, the city of Lancaster found that it's past reputation as 'Hanging Town' came back to haunt it quite literally, a large number the terrified population taking refuge in its numerous churches. But not even hallowed ground was entirely safe from the horrors that filled the never ending night. Further east, the city of York found itself to be in much the same condition as its old rival, while the coastal town of Whitby found itself terrorized by one of the changed worlds many incarnations of Dracula. In the novel he'd moved on to London after his arrival in the port, but the association between the two in both people's minds and the town's identity was enough to keep this chaos created version where he was. Other works of fiction and various bits of local folklore added to the mayhem, a phantom coach and horses thundered through the streets, a headless spectre haunted Fitzsimmon's steps, and a mischievous spirit known as Hob made his presence felt in the country lanes around the town. On the side of light, St Hild, the first Abbess of the now ruined Abby and a focus of local legend for centuries was returned to life, her presence providing a small measure of protection and a rather greater source of hope.

A little way to the north, in the county of Cleveland, things were somewhat quieter, something which was due to the area being relatively insignificant until the Industrial Revolution during which the population increased drastically, and consequently the county was associated with little other then industry. It still had its own share of horrors, there was just slightly fewer of them, and this fact was more then enough to make the area a magnet for refugees.

In the Cleveland town of Guisbrough, a funeral was in progress. A shelter had 

been attacked two days earlier and while the attackers, a pack of huge, fanged, vaguely humanoid beasts had been killed fairly swiftly, a dozen people had lost their lives.

There were few people attending the service, while the majority of the deceased had family not many were willing to leave the relative safety of the shelter. The only ones present were the vicar leading the service, a handful of mourners who were willing to risk leaving the shelter, the man who operated the small digger that had dug the graves and a trio who were acting as guards in case anything dangerous showed up. Two of these were also mourners and stood next to each other. Neither of them would've been easy to lose in a crowd. The taller and slightly older of the two was well over six foot and well built, with blue eyes and a shock of white hair, which given that the man looked to be about nineteen or twenty, wasn't due to age. His right arm was in a sling, a detail that would've made someone wonder why he was on guard duty, until they noticed the large revolver within easy reach of his left hand and the improbably huge sword on his back. The expression on his face was an odd mix of anger and boredom, the former due to his failure to protect those being buried, the latter due to his utter disinterest in the service.

His companion was a boy in his mid-teens, and, technically, his stepbrother. Shorter and slighter then his sibling, he would have been the less remarkable of the pair if it wasn't for his hair which was of a colour more suited to the contents of his arteries. Jaw clenched, he kept one hand on his shotgun and glanced around for trouble.

Prior to Halloween they'd been John and Kieran Brand. Their parents had married when John was six and Kieran two. Although the two had grown up together it was obvious that they weren't biological siblings, the tall, blond and athletic John contrasting sharply with the short, geeky Kieran, but despite the difference the two of them were close. Three years earlier, John's father (and Kieran's step-father) had died of cancer and despite his grief, the then fifteen year old John had done his best to take over as man of the house and look out for everyone else. Kieran on the other hand, dealt with the loss by escaping through his imagination, something which eventually led to him taking up writing, although he'd be the first to admit that it wasn't very good, mainly because his characters usually ended up being far too unemotional.

When the spell struck, John had been on his way home from a Halloween party at a friend's house. Two days earlier he'd injured his right arm playing rugby which necessitated it being in a sling. Never the less, he'd gone to the party, although he'd left getting a costume till the last minute and had improvised by wearing normal clothes with the addition of a toy sword and gun left over from when Kieran was younger and still played with them, and telling anyone who asked that he was a monster hunter.  


The spell had struck just as John was walking through the front door, the combination of his appearance, the toys and sling, and what he's told everyone he was resulting in him being largely replaced by a demon killer by the name of Nero. The chaos magic was unaffected by the timeline, with stories and characters that wouldn't have been thought of for years having as much influence as those that existed at that moment. The game that Nero was from would've come out in 2008, although the Event now meant that would never happen, but never the less the character merged with a young man who greatly resembled him, retaining some of his memories but replacing much of the original personality, something which Nero was less then happy about since to his mind possession was a decidedly demonic thing to do. A highly capable fighter, it didn't take him long to decide to act as protector for John's family, a role in which he had until two days ago been doing a good job of doing, although there were a few things which he tried to hide, the main one being his arm. Although it was in the sling, this wasn't due to injury. Instead the limb had a demonic appearance and was a formidable weapon in itself, more than capable of tossing a monster twenty times his size around like a rag doll. It was in the sling for the simple reason that people tended to take one look at it and get the wrong idea, so it generally made things easier if he kept it hidden.

As for Kieran, he'd spent Halloween stuck in bed with a cold, but hadn't let that stop him from continuing his literary endeavours and had ended up nodding off with the notebook in his lap. Although not in a costume, the connection between him and the character he'd been working on for over a year resulted in the two of them being mixed together. Physically the character was the more dominant influence so he'd gone from being a short, rather scrawny fourteen year old to a wiry sixteen year old standing at a respectable 5"10, with a shock of improbably red hair. Personality and memory wise it was pretty much a 50/50 mix, something which resulted in him having a bit of an on going identity crisis since the two sides often contradicted each other. He wasn't as good a fighter as Nero, but he was working on it.

Their mum had been unsure what to make of her altered sons. Of the two, Kieran had been easier for her to accept since in a lot of ways he was still the boy she's brought up, if somewhat less emotional. Nero had taken more getting used to. She'd finally started to get accustomed to the idea when the shelter was attacked. She'd been helping out with the latest influx of refugees when it had happened and although Nero had done his best to protect her, the fact was that he'd been pretty much the only decent fighter there, there'd been a lot of attackers and he couldn't be two places at once. He'd thought that she was out of harms way and didn't realise otherwise until it was too late. He'd wiped out every single one the monsters but it wasn't enough, he still felt like he'd failed. Kieran, while grief stricken, proved to be surprisingly understanding and kept assuring him that it wasn't his fault.  


Staring down at the grave in front of him, Nero's attention was caught by a rustle in the bushes. The vicar stopped speaking as everyone waited to see what it was, and, if necessary, run for it. The rustling stopped, only for something firmly ensconced in the 'nasty' category to leap out a moment later. Its leap was cut short by two bullets smashing through its skull and knocking it backwards to land in a crumpled heap. Nero waited a moment then, when there wasn't so much as twitch; decided that it was dead and re-holstered his double barrel revolver, an action which the vicar took as his cue to continue.

It didn't take much longer. As soon as the final committal was over, the other mourners and the vicar made a swift retreat back to the vehicles they'd arrived in. The man in charge of the digger started it up and set about filling in the graves. The de facto brothers stayed where they were. Kieran was the first to break the silence.

"So what do we do now?"

Nero shrugged.

"Go back to the shelter. There's still a whole load of weird shit out there and I'm pretty much the only person here who's any good at kicking its ass. "

"True."

Kieran walked forwards and crouched down at the edge of his mother's grave. Picking up a clod of earth, he crumbled it in his hand and tossed it onto the cardboard coffin.

"Bye Mum. Hope things are better where you are."

Standing up, he looked out over the cemetery's fence and froze.

"Hey Nero."

"Yeah?"

"We've got company."

The thing that had barged in during the funeral must've just been well ahead of the pack. There was another half a dozen of the things approaching over the field that backed the cemetery. They weren't particularly big but that didn't really matter since a large percentage of their size consisted entirely of teeth. Nero groaned.

"Oh great."

"Need any help?"

"No. You make sure nothing else gets the drop on the normals. I'll take care of the pest problem."

With that he grabbed his gun and jumped the fence. Two of the uglies were riddled with bullets before Nero even hit the ground and the rest were hacked to bits before they had chance to realise that they were under attack, something which resulted in the ground getting splattered with foul smelling unidentifiable gloop.

"Gross."

Flicking a bit of green goo off his sword he put it back on his back and rejoined his step-brother who was leaning on a Range Rover.

"Let's get going. The normals are getting more nervous then usual."


	3. Omnia Mutantur, Nihil Interit

No real plot I'm afraid, just a bit of world building to be getting on with while I work out what's going to happen in the next proper chapter (by the by, if anyone has any ideas or suggestions regarding events or characters, feel free to share).

Disclaimer: As always, only the words are mine.

Although the countries that celebrated Halloween were few in number, the chaos magic spread far beyond them so that there wasn't a single inch of the planet that was untouched, or a single person that wasn't affected in some way, either directly or indirectly. Even the most isolated of societies and tribes felt the impact, as they watched the sky turn red and found that the beings of their legends and beliefs became all too real, along with the creatures that were created from the psyches of the outside world. There was no escaping from a world gone completely mad, no matter where you hid or how far you ran.

As humanity struggled to survive in the aftermath of the Halloween chaos what they didn't realise was that in some ways they'd already lost the battle. Approximately 20 of the world's population was wiped out in the first month, although this estimate changed on an almost daily basis, going down with every new pocket of survivors that was found and back up again with every report of a town or city reduced to rubble.

Of those that had survived, over 50 was in some way altered, ranging from full transformations with the original personality completely erased, to people who's personality survived intact but found themselves in different bodies, to those who remained much as they once where with the exception of the addition of a few traits brought about by proximity or kinship with those more affected. Out of the transformed, an unknown but significant percentage, possibly even the majority, was either non-humans, hybrids, or some form of subspecies. While a sizable number of 'pure' humans continued to exist in the post Halloween world, the number continued to be reduced due to attacks, food shortages in the more remote areas and periodic disease outbreaks due to poor sanitation in overcrowded shelters that lacked the resources of the more successful colonies. There was also the fact that out of those who were unaffected, the majority were middle-aged or older, while the younger generation had for the most part been altered in some way. In the everyday chaos of surviving no one stopped to think about this or considered that what they saw around them was repeated the world over. Perhaps it was best that they didn't, because if they did then a single stark truth would have become apparent. Even if they managed to survive the monsters, 'natural' disasters and general upheaval, humanity's, (or rather the pre-Halloween concept of it) days were numbered.

Given the ratios of transformed to non-transformed, (not to mention that people are shallow and it just so happened that the ranks of the transformed ran high 

to hotties), hybridization was inevitable and given the semi-isolated nature of the colonies, it was only a matter of time before the vast majority of the world's population had something other then bog standard human somewhere in their family tree. There had already been a certain amount of crossbreeding going on between humans and various compatible species prior to Halloween but that had been the exception rather then the rule. With the sudden explosion in both the number and variety of non-humans, the majority of which were outwardly indistinguishable from humans and perfectly capable of breeding with them, this would change sooner rather then later.

How much of an issue the changes to the gene pool would be depended entirely on your outlook. If you considered humanity to be defined entirely by culture and genetics then it would be a disaster, nothing short of extinction. But if you defined it by something that was simultaneously more abstract and more fundamental then it wasn't quite as bad. The new human race, or races, might differ from their ancestors in terms of DNA but they'd still have families and friends, still fall in love and fall out again, still talk and joke, argue and fight, still work and play and laze around on days off. People would still be people, even if they weren't what everyone would consider to be entirely human. Whether humanity and its many and varied offshoots would survive long enough for this to happen was another question altogether, one which only time would be able to answer.


	4. Inferno

Disclaimer: If it's familar, it isn't mine.

A/N: Please read and review. I don't have much experience writing fight scenes so constructive criticism is appreciated (emphasis on 'constructive'). As with the second chapter, playing 'spot the crossover/reference is encouraged.

Not all of the strangeness in the world was created by the Halloween event. The world had had it's dark side from the beginning and while the Event resulted in the creation of numerous other creatures and factions which frequently out competed what existed originally, the old world wasn't entirely erased. Demons and vampires that had haunted the shadows long before the Halloween event found themselves faced with a simple choice, the same simple choice that faced humanity; adapt or die. Creatures that had once shunned mankind ended up joining forces with, and even helping to protect them for the simple reason that it was the only way to save themselves from bigger horrors. Many vampires were wiped out, glutting themselves during the chaos only to be killed by one of the new threats or starving when their food supply ran out. Like the demons, a few of the brighter ones joined forces with those they'd once considered to be nothing but food, working out a simple agreement where the vampire's employed their superior muscle in guarding the humans and the humans donated the occasional pint of blood.

Those that once hunted the monsters found themselves with the same choice. Some adapted better then others and for every hunter that found themselves working alongside beings that they would once have slaughtered without hesitation, there was another that clung to old prejudices.

Kieran Brand was having a bad day. There wasn't anything particularly unusual about this, he, like everyone else on the planet, hadn't had what could be considered to be even approaching a good day since Halloween. But all things are relative and even in relation to the general crapsack nature of the world today still managed to win gold medal in the Bad Day Olympics.

Truth be told things had been going downhill for a while. About two months after his Mum's funeral yet another bunch of refugees had arrived at the already overcrowded and undersupplied shelter. Guarding them had been a group of men that even by Kieran's standards qualified as scary, and given that Kieran was more or less related to a guy who was part devil and had got thoroughly accustomed to it, that was saying something. The five guys were all armed, hard faced and cold eyed. They were also apparently normals, completely untouched by the Event, but despite this they proved to be very good at killing things.

At first Kieran and Nero had viewed their arrival with mixed feelings. On one hand they didn't look like the sort you'd want to meet in a dark alley, but on the 

other there was a severe shortage of people who were capable of keeping the post-Halloween wolves from the door and they needed all the help they could get. Warily and rather grudgingly the stepbrothers decided to give them the benefit of the doubt.

This plan was changed to 'keep them where you can see them and be ready for trouble' before the week was out. The newcomers were, to put it simply, a bunch of gits. They ordered people around, had barely disguised callous streaks a mile wide and viewed those who'd been altered by Halloween with contempt bordering on disgust. Taking the adage 'know thy enemy' to heart, Kieran resolved to find out more about them. It wasn't easy, they whole bunch was incredibly tight-lipped, but Kieran had very good hearing and, despite his rather garish hair colour, was rather good at being sneaky. What he'd found out didn't make him feel any better. There wasn't really enough to form a clear picture but there was enough to make him nervous. Mentions of various 'jobs' (and Kieran had a pretty good idea as to what exactly those 'jobs' were) and some sort of shifty sounding council that apparently hadn't survived the Event set off a whole belfry of alarm bells, but even more worrying was what seemed to be their opinion of anything of a supernatural or demonic nature, that they were all monsters that had to be killed. When he told Nero about it, the blond had shared his misgivings with a few more on top, but unfortunately directly confronting the newcomers was out due to the certainty that if things got ugly there would be a lot of people caught in the crossfire. So, as much as it grated against their personalities, they decided to watch, wait and keep a weapon or two handy while they were doing it.

This uneasy and unspoken stalemate could only continue for so long though and when it ended it did so in the most abrupt way possible. To put it simply, Nero got outed. There was an attack on the shelter by a pair of god-only-knows-whats that were each about three times of the average Shire horse and which were annoyingly bullet resistant. Nero, in his capacity as Chief Asskicker had had to ditch the sling and take a more hands-on approach. Even if the arm had managed to go unnoticed, the fact that both monsters swiftly ended up embedded in their own brand-spanking new craters would've still managed to give the game away. Long story short, the new guys went spare, with three of the five all for trying to kill him. The fact that Nero had been fighting by their side for a number of weeks and had been protecting just under a thousand humans almost single-handedly long before then counted for nothing. As far as they were concerned, all demons were equally bad, and had to be killed. Threats had been exchanged, weapons were drawn and the only thing that had stopped it from turning into a blood bath had been the leader of the group having sense enough to realise that if they tried anything they'd probably be the losers and it wasn't worth dying for. Instead, he called off him men and told Nero that he had ten minutes to leave. Nero had been unimpressed.

"Make me."

"Easily done. Either you leave or the boy dies."

One of the men shifted his grip on his gun and pointed it at Kieran. Nero looked like he wanted to rip someone's head off.

"You bastard."

"Hardly. I'm willing to let both of you live, which is more then the likes of you deserve. Now, get out of my sight."

By now two more guns were aimed at the scarlet haired teenager. Nero knew he could probably take them all out but he wasn't willing to risk Kieran being killed in the process. Before finding himself in this world, the only person he'd truly cared about had been his girlfriend Kyrie. He'd been willing to do anything to protect her, even embrace his demonic side. He'd only just finished putting this into practice when he found himself standing in the darkened hallway of a house, without Kyrie and with a handful of someone else's memories, not to mention that someone else's family. That he'd protect them was a given from the moment a groggy and fearful woman appeared at the top of the stairs and called him by the other man's name, a pyjama clad and newly aged teenager hovering behind her with a cricket bat in his hands and a determined expression on his face. He'd already failed once. He couldn't do it again.

"Fine. We're leaving."

It hadn't even taken them ten minutes, just the time it took for them to grab their bags and weaponry. The matter of transport was taken care of on their way to the door when a man had tossed them his keys and told them where to find the car. It was nice to know that not everyone was against them. They'd thanked him and left, the newcomers glaring at their backs as they walked out, and getting a good view of three fingers for their trouble.

The car was located without any bother, although being stuck outside at the mercy of the assorted post Halloween weirdness had taken its toll on the vehicle. The engine ran and the tires were intact but the windows were all wrecked and pretty much everything else was equally battered. Never the less, they got into the dilapidated car and headed off out of Guisborough. It wasn't a pleasant journey. Neither of them spoke, they were both too furious for words, not to mention that they couldn't help but feel very exposed. By unspoken agreement, Kieran drove (apparently sharing his head with his own creation had its advantages) while Nero rode shotgun, on the look out for the first sign of trouble. Steering around assorted debris and the occasional abandoned and wrecked car, they passed first empty houses and then ruined fields. Driving 

through deserted villages, they tried not to look too closely at the houses or imagine what became of the inhabitants. They didn't have any real plan as to where to go, mainly because they weren't entirely sure what state the surrounding area was in, so they were just driving until either they found something or the car died.

As it turned out, it didn't take long for both to happen. Just under a mile from the next town a large shape suddenly appeared in front of them, close enough for Kieran to panic and have his attempt to avoid it result in him driving the car into a tree.

"Nice driving dumbass."

"Sod off."

Muttering a steady stream of curses and pointedly ignoring Nero, Kieran tried to coax the car back into life without success. Although the damage didn't look particularly bad, it was appearently enough to make the already battered car throw in the towel. Meanwhile the thing that had caused the accident took off across a field.

"What was that thing anyway?"

"I think it was a cow."

"How could it have been a cow you idiot, they all ended up as demon food months ago."

"Maybe it was a vampire cow."

"How the hell do you get a vampire cow?"

"How do you think?"

Giving up on the car, Kieran punched the dashboard.

"Shit. What are we going to do now?"

"Well we can't just sit around here, sooner or later something's going to come along and think we're a packed lunch. We'll just have to make a run for it."

"Are you nuts? We'll be sitting ducks."

"Well what choice do we have? The car's wrecked and I don't see any others around here."  


Glaring and grumbling, Kieran had to agree. The duo extracted themselves from the ruined vehicle and gathered up their stuff. Kieran groaned slightly.

"You okay?"

"More or less. I've just got a few more aches and pains then I used to, nothing that's going to slow me down."

Shouldering his backpack, he picked up his shotgun and checked that it was loaded. Nero gave him a concerned look for a moment then shrugged.

"We better get moving. Keep your gun ready."

"Yeah, I know. I'm not that much of a newbie."

They set off along the still mostly intact road, the dull red light of the moon painting everything in ugly shades of pink and brown. Despite his bravado, Kieran was terrified, his imagination doing a very good and possibly accurate job of filling the darkness with nameless horrors, and he kept as close to Nero has his dignity would let him. If Nero noticed, he didn't say anything.

Miraculously they managed to reach the town's outskirts without incident but that was where their luck ended. Passing by a housing development, the misshapen forms of never-to-be-completed houses looming in the dark, they became aware of a faint moaning sound.

"Hey, you hear that?"

"Yep. Get ready for trouble."

The two continued to move forwards but it wasn't long before the first shambling forms emerged from between the houses. Zombies.

"You know what I always hated about these towns?"

"They're dead at night?"

"Exactly."

A couple of blasts from Nero's revolver took out the nearest two, while Kieran's shotgun blew holes in a couple more. Breaking open the breech loader, he shoved in two new shells before the spent casing hit the ground. Two more zombies were peppered with holes, but the shot wasn't doing a particularly good job of keeping them down. Cursing, Kieran ejected the spent cartridges and 

replaced them with a couple of modified shells that'd been produced by the nearest thing the shelter had had to an armourer. Snapping the gun closed, he took aim at an approaching mass of zombies and fired.

If an observer of the battle had possessed the ability to see in slow motion, they would've noticed that instead of the usual burst of pellets, what emerged from the end of the barrel were two lumps of lead which separated, revealing a length of wire stretched between them as the resulting flying blade was blasted toward the zombies. All that Kieran saw was that at least four zombies suddenly had parts missing. Sparing a brief, thankful thought for the slightly unhinged young man who'd made them, he reloaded and dismembered a few more walking corpses.

Nero meanwhile was making a rather more impressive dent in the zombies' numbers. Two of them had their brains blown out while one that would've been well out of the reach of a normal man was snatched up, slammed into the ground and then thrown at an approaching group of zombie, a technique that Kieran had dubbed 'bowling for uglies'. A few unusually quick moving specimens charged towards him and were promptly chopped to bits by his sword.

Kieran was starting to get into the swing of it. Shoot, watch the zombies get diced by the bolo rounds, reload, repeat. There was a frantic quality to his movements that was missing from Nero's though for the simple reason that unlike him, Kieran wasn't much good at melee and was therefore dependant on the shotgun for keeping back the crowd of corpses. Depressingly, it seemed like their efforts weren't having much effect, since no matter how many zombies they reduced to piles of rotting meat, at least twice as many emerged to replace them. The duo did the only thing they could. They kept fighting.

Kieran was in the middle of reloading when he saw something moving towards him out if the corner of his eye. He didn't have chance to react before Nero shouted, "Get down", and he obediently dropped into a crouch as a revving sound behind and above him was swiftly followed by about half a dozen zombies getting chopped in half. Taking advantage of the brief beak in combat, he tucked the shotgun under his arm and pulled what looked like a coke can with a strip of cloth emerging from the top from one pocket and a Zippo from the other. Lighting the fuse, he counted to three then stood up and lobbed the make-shift grenade towards the nearest mass of zombies. The explosion had the desired effect, blowing the zombies nearest the blast to bits.

"You got any more of those?"

"A couple. Don't worry, I'll make them count."

Nero nodded and shot another zombie's head clean off.  


Several minutes later, the situation was getting desperate. Kieran had used up all of his grenades and both of them were running out of ammo, but there was still no sign of the zombies running out. They may have been easy to take out but even the most pathetic enemy can become a serious threat if there are enough of them. Realising that they were in trouble, the duo began to make their way towards the nearest building so that they'd have one less direction to worry about. They'd only just reached it when Nero heard Kieran curse.

"Shit, I'm out of ammo."

"You sure?"

"Yep. I don't even have any regulars left."

Slinging the now useless shotgun over his shoulder, he grabbed the edging knife that was the preferable of his two weapons of last resort. The handle had been sawn off to make it more manageable and easier to carry but that still left a two foot length of ash with a large and extremely sharp stainless steel blade at the end. As a weapon, it bore a more then passing resemblance to a Monk's Spade, albeit a shorter, single bladed version thereof. Kieran was getting ready to swing it at the first zombie to come within range when Nero grabbed him by the shoulder and shoved him between himself and the wall.

"What the..."

"Take a break."

"Why? I'm fine."

"You can't see what I can."

The younger man was sweating, panting and starting to favour one leg and tremble from exhaustion. The injuries from the crash were probably making things worse, despite what he'd said. Nero judged that he had maybe two or three good swings in him and knew enough to realise that attempting to fight in his condition was likely to get him killed. Nero on the other hand had the advantage of being not entirely human and wasn't even breathing hard. Between taking swings at the encroaching mass of zombies, he tried to talk some sense into his de facto stepbrother.

"I don't have time to argue about this. Just stay there and give yourself chance to get your breath back. I've dealt with worse; I can handle these things on my own for a bit."

Kieran was about to argue but the look on Nero's face stopped him. He kept his weapon at the ready, but leant against the wall and contented himself with watching Nero beat the crap out of the zombies. Where they were all coming from he didn't know. He had a vague memory of there being a cemetery somewhere nearby but he doubted that even if every corpse had got up it would've equalled the sheer number of the things that were even now emerging from the shadows. Briefly he wondered how many of them had been alive on Halloween before stamping down on that train of thought with a vengeance.

Nero was starting to worry. He hadn't been lying when he said that he'd fought worse but the things' steady stream of reinforcements showed no sign of letting up and even he couldn't keep fighting indefinitely.

Thankfully, there must've been some deity that liked them since a new noise started to make itself heard over the zombies' moaning and the duo's swearing, specifically the sound of engines. And they were getting louder.

A moment later the sources of the noise revealed themselves when a pair of transit vans kitted out with improvised armour barrelled around the corner and screeched to a stop, flattening over a dozen zombies in the process. The side door of the nearest one slide open and a shaggy head was stuck out.

"Need a lift?"

"What do you think?"

There were still a few zombies between them and the van but they made short work of them, a couple of the van's occupants doing their best to keep their side clear. Nero shoved, almost threw, Kieran in before him then jumped in himself. The van's door was slammed shut and the driver hit the accelerator hard enough to throw everyone in the back off balance and trigger a round of yelling and unfair speculation about the driver's competence, intelligence and parentage which went completely ignored.

"You guys okay?"

"More or less. Thanks for coming to the rescue."

"Don't mention it. We happened to be passing by and saw you two getting swamped. Only a total git would've left you like that."

They grinned, exposing pointed canines which didn't go unnoticed.

"If don't mind me asking, what are you?"

The grin widened.

"Guess."

"Vampire?"

"Close. Dhampir actually. My dad was wearing a vampire costume and me and the sibs sort of got dragged along for the ride. I'm Sam by the way."

"Kieran. He's Nero. Sorry but I'm going to die now."

He promptly collapsed into an undignified denim blue heap. Sam looked concerned.

"Is he alright?"

"I'm not sure. He says he's okay but I'd be happier if someone gave him the once over."

The heap let out a rather melodramatic groan.

"We've got a doctor back at the fort."

"The fort?"

Sam shrugged.

"Yeah, the name's more of a joke then anything else. It used to be a school but after everything went to hell some guy calling himself an alchemist made a whacking great dirt wall around the place and people just moved in. It's just on the other side of town so it won't take long to get there".

Nero nodded and tried to make himself comfortable on the van's floor, his sword propped up against his right shoulder. Kieran remained in his heap.

--  
A/N: Well that's it for now. I've got plans for those two, the main one of which involves them going through a rather lengthy period of wandering from one stronghold to another, either chasing a lead regarding pre-Halloween family members or Nero's girlfriend, or because staying where they were is for one reason or another a very bad idea. If anyone has any suggestions for characters that they could run into (preferably ones that haven't already been used by Spaceman), then suggest away.


	5. Everday Chaos

Disclaimer: If it's familar, it isn't mine.

A/N: Please read and review. I don't have much experience writing fight scenes so constructive criticism is appreciated (emphasis on 'constructive'). As with the second chapter, playing 'spot the crossover/reference is encouraged since I thought that it might make things a bit more interesting. I'll include a who's who at the start of the next chapter

As a species, human beings are surprisingly resilient. Given the chance they can adapt to almost anything, not just in the practical or physical sense but in the mental sense as well. If there's one thing that history has shown it's that humans can make a life for themselves under even the harshest of circumstances, particularly if there's a friendly face or two there with them. After the Halloween Event pretty much everything fell apart. Infrastructure collapsed, it was no longer safe for people to stay in their homes or go outside and billions of people were either killed or 'replaced'. Never the less, after the panic had faded and humanity had chance to catch its breath, a recovery of a sort took place. Since the outside world had become a very hostile place, people throughout the world adopted a tactic that had served their ancestors well when hiding from more mundane dangers and retreated into hurriedly constructed fortified settlements. In the US they were usually called colonies, in the UK, shelters, castles or forts (the term's usage having more in common with Celtic hill forts then military strongholds), depending on the location and nature of the strongholds as well as the mindset of the inhabitants. In Finland, they were linnkaupunkiaset, in Italy and Spain, santuario. The names may have varied but they were all essentially the same thing, a place of safety and security in a chaotic world, and once that security was obtained, no matter how fragile it may actually be, the survivors began to adapt. Slowly and cautiously, groups ventured out from the assorted safe havens to search the wreckage and rubble of the Old World and salvage what they could to help them survive in the New, while within the walls people found a little bit of normality amid the upheaval and struggling. Children attended lessons at improvised schools, families stuck together as best they could, people bonded over mutual grousing over the rationing, the weather and being cooped up, and more often then not some enterprising individual managed to find some way to make a profit, usually involving scavenged or homebrewed alcohol.

In Russia a mage who's existence was down to the simple fact that before Halloween there'd been a man who'd shared his name and dress sense was regretting sampling the wares of one of these post-apocalyptic entrepreneurs, although neither regret or the splitting headache would stop him from doing so again. The headache was ramped up several notches when a blonde wearing woman who for some reason was wearing sunglasses indoors banged on his door and demanded to know if he'd got up yet.

In Australia, a man with an unfeasibly long brown braid, eye patch and nose plaster flirted with a faintly Japanese looking girl wearing a miniskirt and carrying nunchaku. There's no real heat behind the flirting, his heart is set on a girl with an oversized chest and a gun that was even more so. As for the girl, her mind is occupied with thoughts of another man with long brown hair.

In America a teenage boy struggles through the wilderness while many miles further south a young green-clad youkai tends to an injured girl and a few rooms away a woman who'd been rendered young again, albeit in a different body wages a never ending war with the demon that is paperwork.

And in the UK, a youth with a thick head of unruly scarlet hair is having his butt kicked for the umpteenth time, while the one doing the kicking concentrates on holding back enough to keep it to bruises and trying not too look too smug about the situation.

"Had enough yet?"

The youth picked himself up, wiped his muddy palms on his equally muddy combat trousers and glared.

"Nope."

The duo had been at the fort for about six weeks. Compared to the various US colonies and even a few of the other British ones it was fairly basic but still more then adequate and a vast improvement on where they'd lived previously. The site was a former school, actually two schools that'd existed side by side, around which was a wall composed of rock hard sections of transmuted earth which had been further extended upwards by the addition of a wall made of perfectly normal, albeit rather thick brickwork. The brickwork section was backed by a narrow platform and incorporated embrasures and crenellations to allow for defense of the walls.

The ones doing the defending were a motley bunch of pre-Halloween soldiers and Army cadets, a few reenactment types who'd been altered to varying degrees and were still getting to grips with more modern weapons and tactics, a couple of handfuls of hurriedly trained normals, and assorted altered combatants ranging from fictional soldiers to fantasy characters to a relatively small number of computer game and anime characters.

The fort was well stocked with various provisions thanks to it's proximity to heavy industry, assorted warehouses and a large port, although rationing was still necessary to make the food supply last as long as possible. On the other hand, there was something of a surplus of assorted flammable chemicals, which the settlement's inhabitants were quick, and often rather creative, in utilizing as 

an assortment of weapons to compensate for the shortage of firearms (apart from the ones that had been created by the Event, there was only a handful of rifles belonging to some of the soldiers, a couple of shotguns, the occasional formerly illegal handgun, and a few improvised firearms that were usually both impractical and dangerous to use). The level of offensive creativity went up a few notches when a group who went to make contact with the Guisborough shelter managed to 'poach' the borderline demented but rather talented individual who'd made Kieran's bolo rounds. Whether said individual was an 'original' or a product of Halloween was unknown and for the most part no one really cared, least of all the man himself.

Inside the walls, a somewhat warped version of normality maintained a rather shaky existence. The old school buildings had been converted to a variety of uses including accommodation, an orphanage and a largely improvised hospital staffed by a mix of pre-Event medical personnel and the products of a doctors and nurses themed costume party. The school kitchens provided three meals a day, with the main hall acting as overflow for the dining hall and the settlements inhabitants eating in shifts. The main hall also acted as a general purpose meeting space. Further accommodation was provided outside and consisted of a hotchpotch of caravans, camper vans, large tents, prefabs, converted cargo containers, a few rows of what looked suspiciously like large garden sheds, and assorted hastily built structures. A few stalls and doorstep vendors sold an assortment of items that weren't subject to rationing which included everything from sweets to shoelaces, and the occasional handmade sign advertised cobblers, clothing repair and hairdressers. The few patches of unoccupied space had been unofficially commandeered as combined recreation/training grounds and were in almost constant use, either for kick-abouts or impromptu combat training. The de facto stepbrothers generally used the one about three minutes walk from where they were staying.

The training had begun about a fortnight after their arrival. As Nero had suspected, Kieran had been more banged up then he'd admitted, with extensive bruising and a couple of yanked muscles. However, there'd also been a bit of a surprise when a check-up revealed that the injuries healed up much faster then normal, with bruises that should've taken at least a month to heal fading in a couple of weeks. After a certain amount of confusion and speculation as to whether or not Kieran was as human as they thought, they finally found out the most likely explanation when Kieran somewhat sheepishly admitted that his old self had a tendency to not bother doing the research and had often given his character overly optimistic recovery times on the few occasions when he'd had him get injured in the first place, and as with the rest of his writing cock-ups it'd carried over to his post-Halloween self. At least this time it'd been something useful.

Shortly after getting his clean bill of health, Kieran decided that it was high time 

that he did something about his inability to hold his own without his shotgun and started to pester Nero for lessons. It'd taken him two days to talk him into it, and as they quickly discovered, just because someone is good at doing something, it doesn't mean that they were any good at teaching it, although mutual stubbornness prevented them from admitting defeat before the other did. Never the less, progress was being made. Slow, painful progress punctuated with periodic trips to the hospital, but progress none the less. For one thing Kieran had pretty much mastered the art of dodging.

Picking up the weighted staff that was standing in for his edging knife, Kieran adopted a loose fighting stance and watched his opponent warily. Without any warning, Nero took a swing with his own stick which ended up hitting air formerly occupied by Kieran, who chose that moment to attempt an attack of his own which was equally unsuccessful. Ducking to avoid another swing, he danced to the side and aimed a blow at the back of Nero's legs, only for his staff to be kicked out of his hands. Shaking his hand to try and lessen the pain in his battered knuckles, he made an attempt to retrieve it and ended up narrowly avoiding getting whacked on the shoulder. A follow-up swing connected with his legs and swept them out from under him, sending him sprawling on the half-dead grass, but before Nero could do the 'stick-at-throat, if-this-was-for-real-you'd-be-dead' thing, Kieran rolled out of the way and scrambled to his feet. Realizing that getting the staff back wasn't going to happen any time soon, he darted out of Nero's line of sight and aimed a kick at his waist. And promptly ended up on his back with the wind knocked out of him. This time he was too busy trying to get his breath back to do anything else.

"That's enough for tonight."

"I'm. Okay. Just. Gimme. A. Minute."

"Nah. I'm starting to get bored. It's just too damn easy to kick your ass."

Kieran glared at him, the effect somewhat ruined by the fact that he was still struggling to breathe. After a moment or two his lungs returned to something approaching normal.

"You planning on sleeping there?"

Kieran stuck two fingers up at him. Nero grinned and held out his left hand. Kieran grabbed it and was promptly hauled to his feet.

"You okay?"

"Yeah. I think. Just a bit winded."

Nero made a non committal noise in the back of his throat and walked off in the general direction of "home". Kieran followed, still panting.

The place that was currently the nearest thing they had to a home was one of a terrace of eight one room concrete block shacks that were roofed with corrugated metal and plastic and were just over twice as wide as the bunks that took up a sizable chunk of the available space. Such structures were fairly common in the fort, built in a rush and out of whatever materials were available, terraced and crammed as close together as possible to make the most of the available space. Their's was a bit better built them some and was unofficially known as J Road, due to the fact that characters from anime, manga. JRPGs and Japanese computer games were something of a minority in the fort and through either accident or design over half of them had ended up being housed in the same row. Kieran and Nero weren't entirely sure why they'd ended up there, although it had something to do with their looks and Nero's weaponry. As for their neighbors, they knew most of them by sight and a couple by name but hadn't really spoken to them that much since Nero wasn't exactly the social type and Kieran wasn't much better a lot of the time.

Crunching down the gravel path that ran in front of their row, they reached their door and walked in. Inside it was painted an off-white, the concrete blocks and cement clearly visible. The bunks took up the left side of the room and a mostly empty chest of drawers occupied the far corner, a liter sized bottle of water and a large plastic bowl resting on top of it. Kieran used them to wash the mud off his hands and the collapsed on the bottom bunk. Although not really injured beyond the usual bumps and bruises, several parts of his anatomy were making their displeasure felt. Longing thoughts of a hot shower couldn't be more then that, since like a lot of things hot water was rationed to one five minute shower a day and he'd had his that morning, besides which he couldn't be bothered with walking to the shower block. On the other side of the room, Nero snorted at the slightly pathetic sight in front of him. Deciding that Blue Rose could do with cleaning he sat down at the small table that took up a fair bit of the space not occupied by bunks or drawers to take care of it.

Kieran meanwhile had had a bit of a brainwave. Kicking off his trainers he rolled himself up into a blanket cocoon in the hope that the trapped and accumulated body heat would have the desired effect.

He must've fallen asleep because what seemed like a moment later his cocoon had disintegrated a bit, his muscles had mostly stopped aching and an alarm was wailing.

A/N: Characters suggestions are welcome. There's the other inhabitants of J Road plus a whole heap of non-anime characters and while I've got a few in 

mind I need more to bring up the numbers. I am also initiating a name the shotgun contest on the basis that pretty much all the weapons in DMC have names and while Kieran isn't actually a DMC character he does spend a lot of time in close proximity to one, not to mention that there's a fair bit of hero worshipping developing (although he'd never admit it) partly because he lloked up to his step brother before Halloween and a bit of that has carried over, and partly because Nero is awesome. Ergo, the gun gets named.


	6. Blood and Hope

Disclaimer: If it's familar, it isn't mine.

A/N: Please read and review. This is pretty much my first attempt at writing a battle so constructive criticism (emphasis on 'constructive'), would be greatly appriciated and probably greatly needed. As with previous chapters, playing 'spot the crossover/reference is encouraged since I thought that it might make things a bit more interesting (if it doesn't then let me know and I'll knock it off). I'll include a who's who at the start of the next chapter and here's the one for the last chapter;

Russia:-Anton Gorodetsky and Tigercub (Nightwatch and sequels)

Austraila:- Pip Bernadette (Hellsing) and Selphie Tilmitt (Final Fantasy VIII)

America:- The guy in the 'Heaven on Earth' section at the start of chapter 16 (possibly spaceman himself), Xander and Joyce.

After the Event, violence or at least the threat of it quickly became an everyday fact of life. Halloween horrors roamed the world and for everyone else survival depended on seeking shelter behind solid walls, while those that had the necessary strength and skills did their best to keep the wolves from the door. The exact methods used to do so varied widely from one stronghold to the next, depending on the built-in firepower of the occupants and the resources and technology available. In a world that was rapidly turning into an interesting mix of Scavenger World and Schizo Tech, with various flavours of Punk thrown in for good measure, this could mean everything from magic, to standard pre-Halloween technology to tech so advanced that trying to figure out how it worked would make the average normal's head hurt.

In the case of the place known simply as the fort, the tech levels were most definitely in the Schizo category. The most obvious fortifications had a vaguely medieval feel to them, all high walls, heavy gate and embrasures, even if most of the walls were transmuted masses of solid stone. Other less obvious defences were more like something out of the area's not-too-distant past. During the Second World War the UK had been turned into what basically amounted to a fortress with the goal of keeping out any invading Germans and failing that to make sure that every inch cost them as much as possible. Most the old defences have long since been removed but in the New World many of the methods used have made a comeback. The chief one used at the fort was the fougasse, an improvised mine consisting of a shallow pit filled with explosives and whatever impromptu projectiles were at hand, usually rubble from destroyed houses, and either rigged for electrical detonation or designed to be set off by a well aimed 

Molotov. A variant known as a flame fougasse was a barrel filled with flammable liquid. When detonated, the weapon shot a flame 10 feet wide and 30 yards long. Both varieties were buried a good distance from the fort walls and were well camouflaged.

Another element was added to the mismatched defences by a magically generated force field over the top of the fort, which provided a measure protection from the dreaded Fire Showers, attacks from above and assorted airborne dangers. The last had been more of an issue in the fort's early days when a fire at one of the chemical plants raged uncontrolled for over a week, filling the air with clouds of toxic smoke. The direction of the wind shielded the fort from the worst of it but it was still unwise to go outside without breathing apparatus, even for some time after the fire finally burnt itself out. No one liked to think about what happened to those who got brunt of the smoke. The force field was invaluable but it had one crucial design flaw in that it was powered by the magical energy of the casters. Since the fort had only five or so magic users with the necessary power, there weren't many of them to share the load. Maintaining the force field left them drained; the week of the fire had almost killed them. For that reason it was only activated when necessary.

The defences were further augmented by an assortment of cameras, both normal and infra-red, fixed outside or on the top of the walls. A few more cameras and motion detectors were rigged up in the surrounding area, as far away as practically possible, and acted as an early warning system. It was because of them that the alarm was sounding. A large group of very hostile looking creatures were heading their way.

The standard defence procedure for the fort was fairly simple. There was a standard rota of people for guard duty, usually the individuals with a more military background, be it fictional or otherwise. If there was any sign of an approaching threat, the alarm was sounded and everyone who had a weapon and knew how to use it came running. However the system did have its flaws.

"Gah. What's the hold up?"

Kieran, gun slung over his shoulder and edging knife strapped to his back jogged forwards, glaring impatiently at the people in front. Nero didn't say anything but he didn't look any happier about the situation.

The situation was this. There were quite a few weapon wielders living in more or less the same area as the duo, the streets were only about two people wide and whoever was at the front wasn't moving fast enough. While far from being the pedestrian equivalent of a traffic jam, things weren't moving fast enough for them. Patience was most definitely not their strong suit, particularly if there being a fight up ahead was a strong possibility.  


Looking around at the almost flat roofed buildings that surrounded them and which he knew continued most of the way to the nearest wall, Kieran had an idea.

"Hey Nero."

"What?"

"I think I might've just found a shortcut."

A minute later the people making their way though the narrow alleyways between the rows of buildings were startled by a pair of figures that leapt over their heads to land on the roof of the building opposite, their passing marked by the thundering of running (and in Nero's case, heavy booted) feet on corrugated metal. For Nero the roof hopping was ridiculously easy, for Kieran it was less so. He had to put a fair bit of effort into it and take care when judging the jumps. On the other hand, it was fun. He wasn't hemmed in by walls, every jump triggered a fresh burst of shouting and swearing that was swiftly left behind and he had a pretty good view of the fort, even if the fact that he was concentrating on not falling meant that he didn't really have chance to fully appreciate it. Out of the corner of his eye he noticed that they weren't the only ones doing a bit of heavily simplified parkour, although he didn't bother looking to see who else was taking the rooftop express. Reaching the wall, they jumped off the last roof, ignored someone's shout of 'Bloody show-offs' and scrambled up the scaffolding to the defence platform.

There were already plenty of people up top. To their right there was a young man in a cowboy outfit that Kieran recognised as one of the neighbours from J Road that he actually knew reasonably well. Irvine Kinneas was a mercenary sharpshooter and student at the very fictional Galbadia Garden. He didn't have any memory of who he was before Halloween but a normal who'd attended the same party said that there'd been a guy dressed as a cowboy chatting up every girl in the vicinity. Irvine always was a flirt, although prior to finding himself here he'd been in the early stages of developing a relationship with a girl he'd had feelings for since he was a kid and who he wanted to search for, although he had no idea where to begin or even if she existed in this world. Kieran had run into him a few times at the firing range and they'd ended up chatting a fair bit. He didn't know Irvine's roommate as well, although he had witnessed an occasional argument between the two. Apparently someone in housing had forgotten that just because two people came from the same universe and were semi-friends, it didn't mean that they wouldn't get on each other's nerves. Like Irvine, Zell had no memory of the person he'd replaced, but apparently they'd been someone who'd had the bad luck to a)vaguely resemble Zell and b) be in the same room as the person who'd become Irvine.  


Noticing who'd just arrived, Irvine acknowledged them with a grin and a tip of the hat. The duo nodded in reply.

To their left was a girl who Kieran didn't know except as a face in the street, although he had to admit that he recognized her patch covered bomber jacket better than her face. She was currently occupied with digging through the contents of a rucksack which included a large number of what looked like aerosol cans, and a catapult.

A quick peek through a loophole revealed that the approaching threat wasn't in sight yet, so after giving his weaponry the once over, Kieran sat down on his heels, leaning against the wall and watched the other people who were rushing to man the defences. Kieran didn't really know most of them but he did have some idea as to who they were, being completely ignorant of who's who was nigh impossible in a place as small as the fort that happened to have a highly efficient bush telegraph. A small group of men clad in a mix of civvies and camouflage gear with the majority carrying rifles were easily identified as pre-Halloween soldiers, with maybe one or two coppers (probably armed response unit members) mixed in. Another trio of soldiers were jogging towards one of the scaffolds, but unlike the first group they were Halloween creations, their not-quite-true-to-real-life uniforms and red caps giving them away. According to the bush telegraph they'd been heard to comment that they had plenty of experience with dealing with weirdness but that the New World was pushing it. A couple of people that looked like ninja, albeit not the classic all black clothing versions, crouched on another wall's platform, while the glint of red moonlight and the white light of the flood lights on oversized blades identified a handful of anime and computer games characters. A scowling blond man marched past, the gladius at his hip hinting at his Roman origins even though he was currently rather grudgingly wearing modern clothing due to his tunic meeting a rather ignoble end involving large amounts of monster blood and the fort's hygiene regulations. The man was one of two Roman soldiers that had somehow ended up in the fort. The other was a tall, dark and muscular guy called Pullo for whom the shock of finding himself in a new world was somewhat offset by the fact that the wife that he remembered dying several years earlier was there with him. His old friend wasn't so lucky, the family he knew was nowhere to be found and he'd ended up 'inheriting' the family of the man he'd replaced, a situation that was universally recognised by the fort's inhabitants as being about fifty kinds of awkward. He was also in the rather odd but increasingly common situation of having a doppelganger in the form of a British soldier who along with a couple of other members of his squad, all of whom he remembered dying at the claws of a group of werewolves, was pretty much the living definition of Badass Normal.

Kieran sighed and shifted slightly. Looking up he saw Nero looking out over the wall, a serious expression on his face.  


"Here they come."

Peering through the nearest embrasure, Kieran got his first look at what all the fuss was about. It was an army. Admittedly not a very big army, more of a regiment as far as numbers went, but still an army, one which happened to be composed of the traditional fantasy bad guys, although by the look of things there was more than one universe represented. The bulk of the army was made up of what Kieran guessed were orcs, a couple of different versions at that, but there was also a couple of very large stupid looking things that were probably trolls, a few oversized wolves that along with their riders were serving as cavalry, and a few other things that Kieran couldn't even begin to identify. All were looked big, mean, ugly and highly likely to be harbouring a strong desire to break into the fort and dish out a rather large amount of pain.

The army marched towards the wall and then stopped. There was a moments quiet as the two sides sized each other up, although between the cameras and the various people scattered along the wall that had binoculars, it was pretty obvious as to who was getting the more accurate picture. The attacking army had the fort's defenders outnumbered, but on the other hand, the fort had more than numbers on its side After a length of time that was probably nowhere near as long, what seemed to be the leader said something and a horn was blown. Behind the first few lines of troops, archers readied their bows. Inside the fort, the defenders de facto commander chose that moment to give the order to blow two of the fougasses, one of which happened to be right under many of the archers' feet. The blasts had the desired effect, taking out a sizable chunk of the enemy forces and preventing the majority of arrows from being fired, although a few wild shots flew over the wall. Kieran, like many others, ducked down and pressed himself against the wall. Annoyingly, Nero wasn't amongst those ducking, the blond part-devil looked down at Kieran with a faint but unmistakable smirk on his lips. Kieran glared back at him.

"I'd rather not get hit with an arrow thank you very much. Unlike some people, getting skewered would be a fairly big issue for me."

"Humph."

While the army was still in shock, the order was given to fire. Home-made grenades and an extremely large variety of ammo promptly started heading in the army's direction, while several more fougasses, both explosive and flame, were detonated, blowing up and barbecuing everyone in the vicinity and making a serious dent in the attackers' numbers. Irvine sniped several members of the 'cavalry', pausing only to reload, an anxious look on his face, while the girl with the bomber jacket threw one of the 'aerosols' which detonated with an extremely impressive bang. Unlike Irvine, she looked positively gleeful about the situation. The duo for their part did their best to pick off as many enemy troops as they could, although Nero was less than happy 

about fighting from behind a wall. A few moments later, he got his chance to switch to his usual style of combat. One of the trolls charged at the heavily barricaded gate, bullets bounced off his hide, seemingly intent on breaking it down. It was not expecting a white and blue blur to leap from one of the walls and introduce its head to the business end of an extremely large sword. Nero's attack triggered a bout of shouting amongst the less disciplined fighters.

"Get in there!"

"Gorram feng le hun dan!"

"Give 'em what for!"

"Bloody lunatic!"

Kieran somehow managed to look worried and grin at the same time. Both Irvine and bomber girl looked impressed.

On the ground the troll found Nero to be more then it could deal with and staggered. Nero took the opportunity to do what some people could interpret as showing off,( and everyone else would class as awesome), grabbing the troll with his right hand, picking it up like a rag doll and throwing it at the army's ranks, flattening almost a dozen of them in the process. Jaws on both sides hit the ground and the army started to realise that they were probably completely screwed.

They were. Several other defenders who were capable of doing so, mostly ninja and dhampirs (Sam had a big family), followed Nero's example and jumped the wall to dish out their own share of up close asskicking. Unsurprisingly those who were supposedly in charge were less than happy about it, but their fury lessened somewhat when they realised that the unconventional attack was having a devastating effect on the already seriously battered army and gave to order to cease firing to avoid shooting their own and to conserve their severely limited supply of ammunition. Down on the ground the fantasy bad guys found themselves dealing with people who even unarmed would be a force to be reckoned with.

Nero tore through everything in his path, heading straight for the other troll and dealing with it in much the same way as the first.

A pair of identical fanged young men charges towards a group of orcs that had become separated from the bulk of the army. Moving faster than any human, they dodge and parry the orcs' swords and administer the mother of all pummellings.

A rider and his mount get taken out by a masked man with silver hair whose fist is surrounded by chirping energy.

An orc swung his blade at a man with a scar across his nose only for the man to disappear and leave a log in his place.

The fight didn't last long after that. The army, composed of several different groups who'd formed an alliance in order to survive, fell apart under the attack, the survivors running for their lives. The defenders considered pursuing them but thought better of it and returned to the fort.

There reception inside the fort was mixed. The majority of those on the walls thought they were brilliant and greeted them with whistles and cheers. The commanders were less impressed.  
"What the hell did you think you were doing?! Your orders were to man the walls."

One of the ninja decided to play diplomat.

"There wasn't really much we could do on the walls. Most of our fighting techniques only really work up close."

"That's not the point! You disobeyed an order."

"I was under the impression that our orders were to defend the fort, which we did."

"Don't talk back to me!"

The dressing down went on for a while, with Nero doing his best to resist the overwhelming temptation to be a smartarse. Eventually the commander ran out of air and told them all to report to the hospital, regardless of whether or not they thought they needed to do so. The last thing they wanted was to lose one of their best fighters because an otherwise minor injury got infected. Grumbling they trooped off to get it over with.

Meanwhile a group of normals did what Brits traditionally do after any kind of drama and made tea. Due to its reputation as the ultimate cure-all, the beverage had become even more in demand than usual since Halloween, and the possibility of it running out was a serious concern for the vast majority of the forts inhabitants. Like most other things it was rationed, with extra cups being occasionally being doled out for 'medicinal purposes' as was the case now, with plastic cups of the hot bitter drink being handed out to the assorted fighters. Kieran accepted a cup with the optional additions of evaporated milk and two spoons of sugar from a motherly looking woman. Wrapping a tissue around the 

cup to prevent his fingers from burning, he headed towards the hospital to meet Nero.

Just outside the hospital there was a notice board that was rather optimistically known as the Board of Hope. The principle behind it was simple. The fort didn't really have any communication system with the outside world but it did have a steady influx of refugees bearing news. Anyone looking for someone posted a note with a photo or description of who they were looking for on the board in the hope that one of the new arrivals had seen them. Nero had posted one with a detailed description of Kyrie, while Kieran's had several rather more vague descriptions of Aunts and Uncles he hadn't seen for over a year at the least.

Before entering the hospital to go find Nero, Kieran took a moment to look at the board, sipping his tea as he did so. As usual the board was ridiculously crowded, the various pieces of paper overlapping each other and hanging over the edges of the board, each one telling a tale of lost friends and separated families. Same old, same old. When he got to Nero's note, he paused and looked closer, before pulling it off the board and walking into the hospital.

Inside the hospital Nero was reaching the limits of his patience. The doctor's refusal to believe that none of the blood he was spattered with was his own had resulted in a good deal of poking and prodding. He was about to tell the doctor where to go when Kieran appeared, an odd expression on his face and a piece of paper clutched in his hand.

"Hey kid, what's up?"

Kieran just held out the paper. Nero took it and read it. As he did so the expression on his face changed from irritation to hope.

Most of the paper was taken up with his description of Kyrie but in the small space remaining someone had added a few words that while simple and vague were at the same time the most profound thing he'd ever read.

'Saw a girl like that about a week ago at a shelter near Holy Island.'

Such a simple phrase but looking at the man that was currently the closest thing he had to family, Kieran knew that there was no need to ask what they were going to do. It was obvious. They were going to look for her.


	7. Onwards and outwards

Disclaimer: If it's familiar, it isn't mine.

A/N: Please read and review. As always, constructive criticism (emphasis on 'constructive'), would be greatly appreciated and probably greatly needed. On the off chance that anyone's wondering, here's the who's who for the characters mentioned in the last chapter:

Irvine Kinneas and Zell Dincht (Final Fantasy VIII)

The girl with the bomber jacket- Ace McShane (Doctor Who)

The trio of red capped soldiers- random members of UNIT (Doctor Who)

The Romans- Lucius Vorenus and Titus Pullo, plus Pullo's wife Eirene (Rome)

The "Badass Normal" British soldiers - The squaddies in Dog Soldiers.

Random Browncoat (Firefly)

Guy with silver hair - Kakashi (Naruto)

Guy with scar on nose - Iruka (Naruto)

Okay then, on with the story.

The post-Event world had many challenges, the most important and obvious one being how to avoid getting eaten by something bigger and/or meaner then you, a problem generally best solved by staying behind very sturdy walls, being on good terms with someone of a sufficient level of badassery to kick the majority of monsters arses, being capable of doing so yourself, or a combination of all three. But once that was taken care of, the survivors faced the more mundane concerns of everyday survival.

The various colonies handled the matter of keeping a large number of scared, confused and effectively homeless people fed, clothed, sheltered and otherwise reasonably comfortable differently and with varying levels of success according to the resources and skills they had available. Colonies blessed with a great deal of high technology and/or magic could create something that, if you squinted and looked from a sufficient distance, could pass as something close to normal, but the majority had to make the best of what was available. As is often the case in difficult times, groups and individuals stood out from the huddled masses 

and took charge of the situation. In most places they were those who'd be transformed by Halloween, the original personas having been replaced or at least blended with a character suited to a leadership role, while in other cases those in charge were figures of authority from the old world. However, there were a few instances where those shouldering the responsibility of keeping everyone alive were relatively ordinary people who took on the challenge because no one else would.

The colony generally referred to as The Fort, fell into this last category, at least partly. Officially the people in charge were a loose council of fictional authority figures from assorted fandoms. Unofficially the ones running the show were the members of a large, loud and notoriously bloody minded extended family, one of the few to have survived Halloween more or less intact. Despite the fact that none of them had been in costumes when the spell struck, most of them had still been altered in some way, the changes based on how they were perceived by others and themselves, as well as exaggerations of previously existing traits. The result included two psychics of uncertain classification, one of which also had the ability to almost literally absorb information, one guy who might've qualified as a Badass Normal if he hadn't be disqualified by being Mr Fixit and the possessor of a mild Healing Factor, one Technopath in the making (in the making because he was only eight), a four year old Cute Bruiser, a couple of Mama Bears and one former animal nut that had become a full blown Friend To All Living Things. The council may have been in charge of all the major decision making, defence and keeping order, but they were firmly in charge of keeping everyone fed, comfortable and sane, arriving in this position though the simple fact that they'd been among the Fort's first inhabitants and upon realising that no one else was taking care of things, collectively said 'sod this' and did it themselves. Naturally there'd been a fair bit of delegation going on since those early days but it was still widely known that they were the ones to go to if the fort's rather precarious infrastructure developed a problem, or if you needed something special done right. Like getting a van ready to face the outside world as fast as humanly possible. Of course, with all the work needed to keep things ticking over, getting anyone to do something which was technically classed as non-essential required a certain amount of negotiation.

Approaching the over sized marquee that served as a garage (lord only knows where it came from); Kieran sighed and sent a mental prayer to whoever might be inclined to listen that the van was ready to go. Getting Ian, the Mr Fixit and defacto boss of the various mechanics and welders, to agree to do the work hadn't been easy and had resulted in him and Nero having to go on scavenger duty for the better part of two weeks, not to mention them having to hand over about half of their carefully hoarded stash of goodies accumulated through previous forays into the outside world (said stash was largely Kieran's due to him being a bit of a pack rat and resolved to push the 'anything you can fit in your pockets' rule to the point where people were starting to wonder if he had a 

hyperspace arsenal), and round up most of the necessary materials and parts themselves. Then to make matters worse he'd been stuck with having to arrange everything due to the fact that for some reason, most likely a combination of Nero's mouth and the fact that someone who's the methodical, perfectionist type, and a guy who once got something to work by shooting it are probably guaranteed to get on each other's nerves, the first time the part devil and Ian had met things had quickly degraded into a shouting match. In the interest of not pissing off the guy who had control over whether or not their van was going to be weirdness worthy any time soon, it was agreed that it would probably be best to keep the two of them as far apart as possible.

Entering the marquee, Kieran was met by a combination of smells that would've told him he was in a garage even if he'd had his eyes closed. As was often the case Ian wasn't there. The Fort's infrastructure always seemed to be needing work and there were plenty of jobs that he didn't trust anyone else to do properly. A pair of skinny overall clad legs ending in trainers stuck out from under an armoured van. Kieran knew the mechanic that the legs belonged to by face alone, he'd not seen enough of him to be bothered with learning his name.

"Come to see about the van?"

The voice held a faint hint of a brogue and sounded odd, like the words had come out of a mouth not really designed for speech, which was exactly the case. Kieran looked down. A medium sized brown cross breed looked back, tail wagging slightly.

"Yep."

"It's over here", said the dog, walking van-wards. Kieran, his weirdness thresh-hold far too high for him to be bothered by a little thing like a talking dog, followed.

The van (a Toyota Hiace) didn't look that much different from the other modified vehicles in the garage, the only notable difference being that the tiny amount of original paintwork that was visible was blue instead of the usual white. The armour itself was a mishmash of colours, consisting as it did of any and all metal sheeting that the stepbrothers had been able to get their hands on. Lettering was still visible on some of the plates. Kieran made a mental note to keep an eye out for some spray paint to put his personal stamp on it and try to improve its coolness credentials.

Looking over the van, Kieran had to admire the care that had obviously been put into it. Ian would never tolerate something being bodged together in his garage, even if it was low priority. The sheet metal had been neatly cut and shaped to fit the various sections of the van, and securely welded or bolted to the vehicle. 

The windows were covered with metal grills welded to the surrounding armour. To Kieran's eye it looked finished.

"What do you think?"

Kieran turned towards the familiar, definitely non-canine voice.

"Hi Ian. It looks pretty good."

Although there were quite a few people amongst the fort's inhabitants that found Ian Fielding intimidating, it wasn't reflected by his appearance, which was that of a middle aged (albeit in fairly good shape and well preserved) man who was a touch taller than Kieran, about average in build and wearing a well worn work shirt and jeans. Prior to Halloween he'd been a ordinary working class family man who could turn his hand to almost any area of DIY and do a better job than most tradesmen, a trait which he was well known for and which the chaos energy had latched onto and amplified. He was considered intimidating mainly for three reasons, he had a low tolerance for stupidity, a yell that would do a Sergeant Major proud, and shortly before his family's arrival at the fort he'd beaten a wolf man twice his size into submission with a crowbar, a incident that the entire fort knew about (with various embellishments tacked on of course). The thought of Ian going spare was one which kept a lot of people firmly in line.

Ian nodded toward the Toyota.

"It's just about ready to go. It's not painted as you can see, but the engine is working and all the armour is in place. I'm afraid that it's not as fast as it was because of all the extra weight, if you wanted I could try and fix that but it'd take a while."

"Nah, its fine how it is. There's so much crap on the roads that it's not a good idea to go fast anyway."  
"Well if that's the case then apart from the paintwork it's finished. Unfortunately we don't have any paint in at the moment so again you'll have to wait."

Kieran thought for a moment.

"It's okay; I'll take it as it is."

Ian looked surprised.

"Are you sure?

"Yep. Nero's been chomping at the bit since we heard about the sighting. If I wasn't here he probably would've tried to set out on foot as soon as he read the 

note. Believe me; for the sake of both our sanities we'd best be off."

Ian nodded.

"I understand. The keys are on the dash board. When will you be leaving?"

"Tomorrow morning probably, it's too late to set off now. I'll go and tell Nero the good news. See you tomorrow."

"Bye."

Jogging down the gravel tracks that ran between the rows of make-shift housing, Kieran arrived at his soon to be ex-home. Nero, bored and frustrated from all the waiting, was apparently attempting to relax since he was lying on his bunk with his headphones on and his eyes closed. Kieran reached over and flicked him on the nose.

"Hey 'ro, you awake?"

Nero shot him a dirty look.

"Yes. What is it?"

"The van's ready."

That got his attention. He sat up and pulled off the headphones.

"Let's get going then."

"Easy tiger. You may not have noticed but it's almost nine in what used to be the evening. I've been up since seven am and spent most of that time lugging boxes around on scavenger duty. You may have freaky levels of endurance but I don't. I'm tired and the last thing I want to do is go out there when I'm not at my best, particularly since I'm the driver. We'll leave first thing in the morning. We've waited this long, a few more hours probably won't make much difference."

Nero gave him a look at the 'probably' but didn't say anything. Instead he hopped off his bunk and started getting all his stuff ready to go. It didn't take long since he didn't own much. Neither did Kieran for that matter, most of his things had been left behind in Guisborough. Belongings packed, Nero checked over his weaponry before resuming what he'd been doing when Kieran walked in. Kieran dug out his map and set about going over the route they'd be taking (plus all the alternative routes in case the first one wasn't doable) for the umpteenth time. However, he must've been even more tired than he thought and it wasn't long before the map started to blur in front of him. Kieran blinked 

and resumed studying it, but a moment later it started going out of focus again.

"Oh sod it, I'm going to bed."

Folding up the map, he put it in his jacket pocket before taking off his boots and sweatshirt and climbing into bed. He was asleep within minutes.

As planned, they left early the next day. They were amongst the first people to turn up for breakfast in the canteen and went to retrieve the Toyota from the garage as soon as they'd finished eating. Ian and a girl that they recognised as the information absorbing psychic were there to wish them luck.

"Take care out there. It's a tough vehicle but it's not indestructible."

"Yeah I know," Kieran said as he climbed into the driving seat. "I'll try and avoid trouble, but if I can't then we'll just have to deal with it."

Nero looked at him.

"Don't you mean I'll have to deal with it?"

"I suppose. You are the better fighter after all."

So far Ian and Nero had been doing their best not to talk to each other, but now Ian spoke up.

"It's Nero isn't it?"

"Yeah."

"About this girl you're looking for, I hope you find her. It's about time that something good happened."

Nero nodded and climbed into his seat.

Driving towards the main gate, Kieran noticed something and let out a snort of laughter.

"What's so funny?"

Kieran gestured towards the gate.

"See for yourself. Here's to open it's not a sigh of things to come eh?"

Nero saw what Kieran was pointing at and rolled his eyes. They hadn't noticed 

the writing on the gate when they got back from scavenger duty so it'd probably been written during the night by someone with a rather weird sense of humour.

'Abandon hope, all ye who exit here.'

A/N: Sorry that there wasn't much happening in this chapter. I sort of hit a wall so writing a lot of this chapter was like pulling teeth, as I suspect will be the case with the next few chapters since while I've got the beginning taken care of and I'm pretty sure about what's going to happen in the end, I don't really know what I'm doing in the middle, so if anyone's got any suggestions then suggest away. Anime or non-anime, it's all the same, the only restrictions are whether or not I'm familiar with whatever it is, or alternatively if I can gain the necessary familiarity via Wiki.


	8. On The Road

Disclaimer: Only Kieran is mine.

Author's Note: Sorry it's been a while since the last chapter, my imagination hasn't been co-operating. Please read and review, since reviews make me a better writer (well, that's the theory).

"_italics"_ telepathy.

Co-operation is a strange thing. People often underestimate it, considering it the preserve of kid's films where the characters get taught an Important Lesson. When it comes to survival against the odds the usual image in people's minds is the lone survivor who overcame all obstacles, and, it is often implied, all the easier for the lack of anyone 'weighing them down'. Of course the reality is somewhat different, particularly in a world where pretty much everything wants to kill you. There are some who make it on their own (or at least think they do. Companion Cubes and Empathic Weapons are less obvious partners, but partners they often are), but for the most part avoiding getting into the situation where the only help left is the kashira of a zanpakutō requires co-operation with others. Given the 'anything goes' nature of the post-Event world, these partnerships are strange and myriad indeed. Enemies become allies, former villains turn on their heel, and the most improbable of friendships are forged under the most unlikely of circumstances.

In a colony somewhere under the Red Sky, a young girl makes her way along the pavement. Her story is tragic but altogether too common in the New World. Her family was wiped out by the Event and the horrors that it created and she was taken in by a small colony, only for it to fall apart under attack. She travelled to this colony with the other survivors, the group being attacked more then once on the journey. Upon arrival she was sent straight to what passed for a hospital and was only recently released due to a shortage of beds. Why she is hospital is all too clear since the upper part of her face is wrapped in gauze which covers the damage from Jack O'Lantern inflicted acid burns. But despite this, she moves with surprising ease, deftly dodging other pedestrians, although her posture is oddly upright and rigid to avoid dislodging the reason she can do so.

On her head, a one year old longhaired miniature dachshund balances precariously, its rear occupying the hood of the girl's coat while its front paws do their best to keep their purchase on her hair. Oddly intelligent brown eyes take in everything going on around them. To the majority of passers-by the pair are silent but the few that are capable of picking up telepathy are aware of something rather different.

"_Watch out Mya, spiky haired blond guy with giant key thing. Step to the left_."

The girl side-steps the boy in her path.

"_Road coming up. Stop….. now_."

The girl paused at the kerb.

"_There's a fair bit of traffic. Two bikes, a couple of__ motor__ bikes doing deliveries, a bus that's heading for the gates."_

"_I don't really need a running commentary Oscar, just directions_."

Oscar mentally huffed.

"_But then you miss out on all the details and where's the fun in that. Okay, you can cross the road now_."

Oscar is a fairly unusual specimen. While intelligent, talking dogs are fairly common thanks to countless owners who saw their pets as people in fur coats rather then animals, telepathic dogs are altogether rarer. In Oscar's case the ability came about thanks to his previous owner possessing a tape of "A Boy and His Dog" which Oscar had been using as a pillow when the Event occurred. Thankfully, while he gained the titular dogs telepathy and intelligence, the friendly, happy go lucky dachshund was otherwise unaffected by the rather dark film. His owner taken over by his costume, Oscar had to make his own way in the world, getting an injured leg in the process, before meeting Mya shortly after she was blinded. A dog who couldn't run and a girl who couldn't see, it must've been fate.

"_Careful, there's a…"_

Mya tripped over the small furry animal that had suddenly appeared in her path, narrowly avoiding sending Oscar flying in the process.

"…_cabbit."_

The system still wasn't quite perfect.

Meanwhile, somewhere in the north of England…

"You've got us lost haven't you?"

"We're not lost. We're still going in the right direction, just not on the route I had planned."

"In other words, we're lost."

Kieran flipped the white haired male the two finger salute.

"That the best you can do?"

"Look, if it bothers you so much, why don't you drive? Oh that's right, you can't, 'cause while you've got a new set of memories and a very awesome arm, you're still mysteriously incompatible with motor vehicles."

Nero considered whacking him upside the head, then remembered that Kieran was out of range of his left arm and whacking him with the right was probably a bad idea. Plus they'd only been travelling for an hour so the low-grade violence should probably be saved for later.

"I could still navigate."

"Err, there might be a slight problem there."

Nero looked at his pseudo- step-brother suspiciously.

"What problem?"

Kieran had the decency to look sheepish.

"Er, I'm not exactly sure which road we're on."

"How the hell did you manage that!"

"I think it was a combination of a lot of trampled road signs and having to take a detour because of that dead dinosaur. The wrecked overpass probably didn't help either."

"So we really are lost then."

"Not really. We're still going north and we'll probably find a sign sooner or later."

"Ah, the good old 'keep going until you hit something school of navigating'."

"It worked last time didn't it?"

"We crashed into a tree."

"That was because of the vampire cow."

"There's no such thing as vampire cows."

"Says the half-devil."

"Part-devil, I'm less then half. And what does that have to do with anything?"

"I'm not sure, but right now I'm hoping it'll help us deal with that guy."

Nero looked away from Kieran and saw what was in the road.

"Oh great."

"At least it isn't a demon."

"Now you've jinxed it."

Like most of England, the county of Yorkshire has its share of folklore. One of the figures from it is Jack-In-Irons, an immense, ferocious looking giant wearing chains and human heads that carried a spiked club and haunted lonely roads. As was the case with pretty much everything else in folklore, after the Event, Jack became very real indeed. Most people encountering him would be terrified and try to flee, but most people weren't Nero.

"Stop the van."

Kieran hit the breaks and reached for his shot gun.

"Going to clear the road?"

"I am. You're staying here."

"Nero..."

"Kieran, stay in the van."

The scarlet headed teenager looked like he was about to protest further but relented.

"Fine. Yell if you need me."

Nero nodded before hopping out of the van and walking towards the giant.

"Hey ugly, you're in my way."

Jack looked down to regard the much smaller white haired figure with an expression usually reserved for particularly irritating insects, before raising his club and bringing it down to crush the cocky little pest.

Only for club to be stopped less then a meter from impact. Underneath it, looking downright casual, was Nero, demonic right arm blocking the club with a distinct lack of effort. Then, while the giant was still working out what had happened, he threw the club upwards and launched himself at his opponent.

Inside the van, Kieran was on the edge of his seat, watching the fight and hoping that all the stories that Nero had told him about his past battles were true. When he blocked the club, Kieran's eyes widened his mouth quirking upwards in a smile. When Nero's sword connected with the giant's head, the smile turned into a full-blown grin. When Jack-In-Irons was unceremoniously thrown up into the air and briefly kept aloft with a hail of bullets he cheered, before being jostled by the impact of the giant hitting the tarmac.

"Nice one. Oh crap he's getting up, quick get him."

"Watch out 'Ro, he's taking a swipe at you."

"That has to have broken a few laws of physics."

"Isn't this thing dead yet?"

A successful blow by the giant sent Nero sprawling and had Kieran grabbing his gun and reaching for the lock on his door, stopped only by Nero getting up and hamstringing the giant in one leg with a blow from Red Queen. Kieran collapsed back in his seat with a gasp of relief but kept a tight grip on his shotgun.

Jack struggled to his feet and took another swipe at the pest that not only had the nerve to attack him but actually seemed to be winning. Said pest easily dodged the attack and retaliated with a flurry of sword slashed, followed by throwing Jack around like a ragdoll and slamming him into the ground. After about the third collision with terra firma, Jack tried to get up and collapsed.

In the van Kieran jumped up so fast that he hit his head on the ceiling.

"Jackpot!"

The proximity effect works in strange and mysterious ways.

After a few minutes passed without the giant moving, Nero tossed him off the road and jogged back to the van, where he found a grinning (and slightly bruised) Kieran.

"Is it dead?"

"I think so. If it's not it's going to be really pissed when it wakes up."

Kieran got the point and hit the accelerator.

"You okay? You got hit pretty hard out there."

"I've had a lot worse. Don't worry, I'll be okay."

"You'd better be."

The two drove on for several minutes before Kieran spotted something.

"Look, a road sign. The system works."

"Yeah, yeah. So how lost are we then?"

"Not at all. All the towns on it are on the route I had planned. We're back on track."

"Are you sure?"

"I'm sure. I've been going over that route every night for the past week, I've got it memorized. We're quite a bit behind schedule but we're back on track."

"Just try to stay on track from now on, okay."

"Don't worry; I know exactly where I'm going."

Nero groaned.

"You've just gone and jinxed it."

Kieran winced.

"I did, didn't I? Oh well, there's nothing I can do about it now. We'll just have to keep going and keep our fingers crossed."

The van lumbered on.

A/N: A/N: Not very long I know, but I thought it best to stop before it degraded into waffle. As is the case with the story that originally created this verse, this fic is an exercise in interactive storytelling. There's still a while to go until they get where they going and even when they do it won't be the end of the road. Lots of places to go and people to meet and I'd like to include characters that people actually want to see. Anime or western, it doesn't matter, the more variety the better.

Translation:

_Kashira_; the katana equivalent of a pommel, ie the bit that get tapped against ghosts' foreheads when they get konso-ed.


	9. Suprise

Disclaimer: As always, if you recognise it, it's not mine.

A/N: '....' = thoughts

Trauma. One word for something which by its very nature involves a huge amount of variation. Something which is utterly traumatic to one person may hardly affect another, likewise while some are rendered so utterly broken by their experiences, others continue to function and may even give the appearance of normality despite their internal torment. In the post-Halloween, a rather crude but brutally effective form of natural selection has left mainly the latter. Those that are still capable of functioning and adapting to the new dangers and difficulties are more likely to survive, those who are utterly broken generally end up as monster food unless there's someone to look out for them. Simple, unpleasant but true. In many ways, survival in the world under the Red Sky was a test of mental fortitude as much as muscle since even powerhouses met their ends when their minds, be they the pre-Halloween personas or those that replaced them, were unable to cope with the horrors that surrounded them. Some fell victim to Heroic BSOD, while others slowly had their judgement, wills and sanity eroded by more realistic forms of shell-shock.

**Somewhere Outside Alnwick, About Twenty Seven Miles from Lindisfarne**

Kieran was not a happy camper. Despite all expectations the past three quarters of an hour had gone by with barely a hitch. Nothing blocking the road, no attacks, and no major weirdness apart from a few forlorn ghosts and the ever present boiling red sky. Ironically this was the cause of Kieran's misery. Since Halloween he'd done his best to stay occupied for the simple reason that if he was busy then it's was harder for his mind to go places he'd rather it didn't. Like the fact that the man sitting next to him wasn't really his brother, that his brother was gone and Nero was what was left in his place, with the occasional bit of John shining through Nero's personality both taking the edge off the situation and serving as a bitter reminder.

'He's not dead. It's like that thing I saw on TV about the guy who got his head bashed in and ended up losing his memory and getting a different personality, but his friends and family still stuck with him because he was still him, just different. This isn't even as bad as that, he remembered being John, well bit and pieces anyway, and he still acts like John sometimes. I mean, he still does that weird thing with ketchup for crying out loud. Yeah, he looks different, but so do I.'

'He's still not John.'

'Shut up.'

'You know it's true. You just won't admit it because Mum's dead, everyone else you know is either dead or gone and Nero's all you have left of John, even though he's the one who's taken his place.'

A quiet anger rose inside him and he stomped down on that traitorous part of his psyche with a vengeance.

'Sod off. That's bollocks and you know it.'

'Family's family. Even if he's not the same person as John, he's still your brother. You've fought together, lived together, watched out for each other, patched each other up after fights. You trust him with your life and I'm pretty damn sure he trusts you with his. If that doesn't make him your brother I don't know what does'.

Kieran frowned slightly. No way was something like that something he'd come up with. Thoughts that didn't seem to be his own had become a regular occurrence since Halloween, the result of sharing his head with the character of his own creation, although he was sure he hadn't been that insightful when he'd been writing him. It usually bothered him but this time it was almost reassuring, not least because it had well and truly shut up the more depressing side of his psyche. He was pretty sure that this was probably a sign of something but right now he didn't really care.

But even though it had been silenced for the time being, the part of his mind he'd rather not have had managed to bring up another thing that he spent a lot of time and effort not thinking about, his mum. Her absence gnawed away at him. She shouldn't have died the way she did. She shouldn't have died at all, at least not until she was very, very old and surrounded by grown-up grandkids. Logically he knew that there wasn't anything he or Nero could've done, but emotionally it was a different matter. Pointless guilt mixed in with grief and vague, undirected anger.

'It's not fair.'

'Nothing ever is, it's just the way of the world,' chimed in the newest addition to his mental peanut gallery.

'I know. It still sucks.'

'I'll have to take your word for it. I've never had any parents.'

It was stuff like that that made Kieran wonder if he was losing it.

'I think you've already lost it.'

'Shut up.'

When the rattling started it was all Kieran could do to stop himself from sighing in relief. As distractions go it wasn't much but he'd take what he could get.

"What's that noise?"

"What noise?"

"The one you apparently can't hear over those headphones, even though they're round your neck."

Nero shot him a dirty look but straightened up from his usual slouch and listened. After a moment he shrugged.

"Maybe there's something loose?"

"Like what?"

"How should I know?"

Kieran sighed. On one hand it might be nothing to worry about or worth risking getting out of the van for. On the other hand there wasn't anything obvious lurking out there at the moment (which was surprising given the amount of Northumbrian folklore) and for all they knew it could be something major that would come back to haunt them if they got into trouble later on. He concentrated for a moment, trying to pin down the source of the rattling and decided that it was to the left, on the exterior of the van rather than anything to do with the engine. Still, it might be a good idea to check. He put it to a mental vote.

'Are you nuts? Stay in the van where it's safe.'

'Better to check know then leave it unknown and possibly have it bite you in the arse latter.'

'Better to be on the safe side and know what the problem is. Besides, the rattling is getting annoying.'

Checking it was then. Kieran stopped the van but left the engine running.

"Why're you stopping?"

"I need to see what's making that noise. Knowing our luck it's the first sign that the wheels are about to fall off. Watch my back for me will you?"

"Don't I always?"

After a few minutes of searching Kieran found a possible culprit. A small section of armour near the door had somehow become loose on one side. Kieran was in the middle of doing a temporary repair with gaffer tape when there was a thunk as something hit the van not far from Nero's head, followed by Nero firing his gun in the direction the projectile had come from, which was in turn followed by a frightened yelp.

Kieran's shotgun was off his shoulder and in his hands as soon as he heard the thunk. Glancing down at what had caused it he frowned. Who the hell used a crossbow?

"Hey, whoever took a shot at us. If you haven't noticed guns trump crossbows, so why don't you behave yourself and come out where we can see you?"

There was a pause, then a figure emerged from behind the hedgerow holding the expected crossbow. The duo raised their guns but didn't fire, especially not when they got a good look at their attacker.

"What the hell? She's even more of a kid then you are."

Kieran glared at his partner, before turning his attention back to the girl in front of them.

Nero was right, she was just a kid. Kieran was willing to bet his shotgun that she wasn't more than thirteen at the very most, and by the look of her she was pretty much dead on her feet, not to mention being scared out of her mind.

"Hey kid, you shouldn't shoot at people. It's kinda impolite."

Nero the smartass strikes again, although it seemed to go over the girl's head because she just looked confused instead of irritated. Kieran on the other hand only just managed to stop himself from rolling his eyes and sighing. Plastering a smile on his face, he tried to look friendly or at least non-threatening.

"Hello, what's your name?"

The girl didn't answer, her attention focused on Nero's arm despite his best efforts to keep it out of sight. Obviously he hadn't been quick enough about it.

"Hey!"

The girl jumped slightly.

"Why'd did you shoot at us?"

"He's a demon," replied the girl, a Cockney accent audible even though she spoke with the mumbled, muddled-sounding voice of the chronically sleep deprived.

Nero looked slightly uncomfortable. He may have got over most of his issues regarding his nature, accepting it as a fair price for being able to protect Kyrie (and since he'd arrived in this hell hole, Kieran), but he'd spent too many years hiding it and old habits die hard.

Kieran snorted.

"Devil actually and only a little bit at that. Don't let the arm fool you, he's a good guy, we both are."

The girl gave Kieran a hard look, taking in the gravity mocking vermillion hair and too vivid blue eyes.

"What are you?"

"Human, just with a few alterations. What about you?"

"I'm human."

"Okay, now that's cleared up I think we'd best be moving before something shows up looking for dinner and you'd better get back to whoever you're with before they think you've been chomped."

The girl looked haunted.

"They're gone."

"Oh. Sorry."

An unspoken exchange passed between the two males.

"If you want, we'll be happy to give you a lift to Holy Island. You'll have to promise to leave that crossbow alone though."

The girl nodded.

"I'm Kieran by the way. Blondie over there is Nero."

"I'm Molly."

****************************************************************************************************************************************************************

Molly didn't talk much after that, which was a bit of a shame since Kieran was curious as to how a Cockney ended up in the middle of the Northumbrian countryside. There wasn't much room in the front so she sat in the back on one of the sleeping bags that Kieran had packed in a fit of Crazy Preparedness and as it turned out his opinion that she was dead on her feet was spot on since she was out like a light within minutes.

"Poor kid."

Nero looked at him.

"She's not that much younger then you are."

"So? I can still call her kid; I must be at least three years older than her."

"Only physically."

"Hmm. Seriously though, she must've been on her own out there for god only knows how long. I don't think she's slept in days and she probably hasn't eaten for a while either."

"Probably."

Nero's mind obviously wasn't on their unexpected passenger. Kieran could guess what was though.

"I'm sure she's fine. Anyone who's gone through all that crap you told me about has got to be tougher then they look."

"That's not the point. I should be there to protect her."

"It's not your fault that you're not. Anyway, I'm sure she'll still need protecting after we find her and until then you've been keeping your hand in by keeping me alive. Thanks for that by the way."

Nero looked at him sideways.

"You're welcome."

The next few minutes passed in companionable silence, well apart from the music coming out of Nero's headphones. When they spotted a sign directing them towards the causeway to Holy Island Nero started to get a bit fidgety and Kieran did his best to ignore him. Honestly, the guy had waited this long to see his lady love, couldn't he wait a few more minutes?

When they got to where the causeway was supposed to be however, their hearts sank.

"What the hell?"

"Seconded."

They could see the island; in fact it couldn't be more than a few miles away. Unfortunately, instead of leading to it the road in front of them vanished under waves turned red by the sky. The two stared in disbelief for a moment.

"Okay, so what do we do now?"

A/N: I've decided that since this is technically a BtVS crossover, I should probably include a few actual BtVS characters. Unfortunatly, due to me being a bit slow off the mark spaceman has already got all the major ones accounted for, so I'm left with the minor characters and I'm not sure which ones are actually going to be worth including, after all, there's no point including characters that no one cares about. So I'd appriciate it if people made some suggestions regarding characters, costumes, and in the case of the ones that everyone dislikes (eg, Watchers), whether or not you want me to put them through the ringer / kill them off as creatively as possible. I'd also appricate suggestions regarding non-BtVS characters that they could run into since I'd much rather use ones that people want to see then ones I've just picked off the top of my head. Unlike spaceman, I'm just as happy to use Western stuff as anime.


	10. A Moment Of Calm

**A Moment Of Calm**

Disclaimer: If you recognise it, it isn't mine. If you don't recognise it, it still might not be.

Family. As things go it's pretty much universal, one of the few concepts that are recognised by every single human culture. Never the less, pre-31/10 it was the subject of a fair amount of debate, specifically regarding what constituted a 'normal' one. Were single parent families inferior to ones with two parents? Should same sex couples be allowed to adopt? Afterwards the debate became fairly redundant. Family was what you made of it, quite literally at that. After the Event there were a lot of people who'd lost family, and almost as many who's loved ones had been transformed. There was also a whole load of people who found themselves in a strange place without anyone they knew and a bunch of people who'd known the person they'd replaced. People grieved over those they'd lost and often didn't know how to deal with the strangers left in their sted, or at worst discovered that someone they'd once loved had turned into someone who wanted to kill them.

Even when death wasn't on the immediate agenda, there was still a lot that could go wrong. For every success story there was at least three tragedies. Children were abandoned by transformed parents who no longer cared if they lived or died, or transformed kids were rejected by parents who saw them as interlopers and monsters. Those too young, old or weak to defend themselves or flee often perished before the first dawn failed to occur. It is very telling to note that if someone were to record the age demographics of the world a few months after Halloween, they'd notice a general lack of kids whose ages were still in single figures and adults north of their sixties.

Even with the 'success' stories things were often messy, with people trying to build relationships with people that they didn't know and who didn't know them. A common result being a Replacement Goldfish situation where family units were reassembled out of the wreckage left by 10/31. A lot of the results would be familiar to anyone who's spent time in Rukongai; combinations of the fragments of up to a dozen different families, the replaced, the altered and the unchanged, friends and travelling partners. Families headed by older siblings or made up of a gaggle of orphans and an impromptu guardian or two doing their best to cope. Bonds were forged out of necessity and by the pressures of survival in the New World, not to mention the almost overwhelming fear of being alone in a waking nightmare, of dying with only your killer for company. A group may start out barely knowing each other and as nothing more then travelling companions but a few weeks of shared fear and struggles, and having to rely on each other every second of the day can forge a bond as strong as blood. They may not love each other, they may not even like each other a lot of the time, but they stick together, fight together, protect each other, and anyone foolish enough to harm one of them will end up bringing the whole group down upon their heads. The English language doesn't really have a word that does this sort of relationship justice, but Japanese, a language that has had a sudden increase in importance due to many, many former anime characters, does; nakama. Formerly a fairly obscure phrase as far as the western world was concerned, in the years after the Event it would become an important loan word even before the viral language known as Magianese finished spreading, and in some circumstances one with a certain amount of legal weight, since in the absence of conventional family someone has to take on the duties that would normally fall upon relatives.

In the chaotic first months of the New World, there are already signs of what the future has in store. Multiple versions of the same character appear throughout the world and while there are those who are enraged by there being another being just like them, many embrace their doppelgangers as family. Some, such as the Narutos and the duplicates of characters from certain Japanese video games, will build upon that early familial bond to become a force to be reckoned with, while others just cling to each other as the only safe thing in a hellish world. Related characters find each other and discover that they all have their share of newly acquired familial baggage which often has at least one connection with another formerly fictional family, whose members have new relatives of their own and so on. Combined with the duplicates and it becomes apparent to anyone with good observation skills and a decent imagination that the result is going to be a sprawling, interconnected mess, not to mention that Six Degrees of Separation is going to get a lot more interesting in the not too distant future.

Of course, while people are discovering family that they never before had, they're often driven to find the ones that they have lost.

****************************************************************************************

After staring at the sea in disbelief for several minutes, a fair amount of swearing, a couple of rather desperate ideas such as finding a boat (nixed by a general absence thereof), and swimming for it (vetoed by common sense), and somehow managing not to wake up Molly, the disappointed duo did the only thing they could. They turned around. After several minutes of driving however, they came across something unexpected. Sticking out of the top of a hedgerow was a sign with the word 'Refuge' and an arrow painted on it in white paint, although the light made it look pink.

"Think it's a trap?"

"If it is it's the most unsubtle one in history, not to mention being a cliché."

There was a pause.

"Want to check it out?"

"Might as well. If it's not a trap then we get somewhere to stop for a bit and if it is..."

"Then we take them out."

Kieran nodded.

"Sounds like a plan."

A murmur from the back of the van reminded them of their passenger.

"What about her?"

"If she stays in here she should be okay. If things get ugly, I'll keep them busy while you get away."

A couple of months ago Kieran would've protested the idea but experience regarding Nero's personality (specifically the fact that he had a stubborn streak a mile wide) had taught him not to bother arguing. Besides, if anyone could take care of themselves it was Nero.

Pressing down lightly on the accelerator, Kieran turned the van in the direction indicated by the arrow.

They saw it long before they reached it. At the end of the road, stretching for about a mile, was a hedge. A very, very tall, dense looking hedge that blocked the road completely. When they got closer they could see that the branches were entwined so tightly that Kieran doubted that a mouse could get through, even without the vicious looking thorns that covered every twig. Up close they could also see just how high it was, the mass of branches towering over them, easily equalling at least three stories.

"Wow. I seriously doubt that's natural."

"You think?"

"Hnn. Well, this seems to be it. I wonder how you get in."  
No sooner were the words out of his mouth then the wall of plant life began to split and part like the Red Sea. Looks and shrugs were exchanged, then Kieran drove the car forwards though the thorny canyon.  
It seemed to go on forever, the wall of thorns gradually opening in front of them. A little way in the two teenagers were alarmed to see that it was also closing up behind them. Kieran bit his lip and checked that his shotgun was within easy reach, while Nero frowned and kept one hand on Blue Rose, but they kept going forwards.

"Ten quid says there's at least one wizard or something on the other side."

"It could be a demon or something."

"Or a ninja."

"Huh?"

"I overheard one of the headband brigade mention something about a guy they knew who could control plants. Dunno about the details."

"Weird."

"Eh, what isn't nowadays?"

There was a pause.

"Should we wake up Molly?"

"No. We don't know if we can trust her and we don't want her getting in the way if things get ugly. Last thing we'd need is a panicking kid to worry about."

"Eh, after what she's probably been though I doubt she'd panic that easily."

"Maybe…"

Nero trailed off as they noticed that the wall of branches in front of them was starting to thin out.

"Showtime."

After spending several minutes surrounded by branches, the van finally emerged into an open space, the monster hedge closing behind them. A little distance away there was a cluster of farm buildings and short terrace of houses, while a field near the farm held the usual assortment of improvised long distance transportation; vans, lorries, a couple of coaches, a few four wheel drives and pickups, and what looked like an ambulance. All in all there wasn't anything obviously suspicious, well unless you counted the expressions of the group of guys who were waiting for them. All looked human and all but one seemed to be normals, the exception being a rather druidesque wizard with a staff who the duo promptly pegged as the creator of the hedge from hell. The non-wizards were armed; Kieran counted one shotgun, one rifle and one bow and arrows, as well as the usual mix of sharp objects pressed into weapon duty.

Inside the van, the duo exchanged a look, then Nero tugged down his right sleeve and tucked his hand out of sight as Kieran opened the door to make the introductions.

"Hiya. We saw the sign and we were wondering if we could stop here for a bit."

The guy with the shotgun gave him a hard look.

"That depends. You're not going to cause any trouble are you?"

"Nope. We just want to have a rest for a bit. Me and my friend were trying to get to Holy Island but it's cut off."

"The tide's in at the moment. You'll be able to get across at low tide."

"Really?"

Kieran was pretty sure he could feel a sweat drop forming, although it could just be the dirty look that Nero was giving him. They hadn't known about the tide thing.

"Low tide won't be until tomorrow."

"Okay. So can we stop here until then?"

Throughout the conversation the wizard had been staring very hard at the van. Now, the apparent leader of the group glanced at him. The wizard looked as if he was making his mind up about something, before answering the unspoken question with a nod. The "welcoming party" relaxed a little.

"Yeah. You can park over there with the others. If you need the loo or anything just follow the signs. If you're thirsty there's a well at the farm but we don't have much food to spare."

"That's okay. Thanks."

Kieran ducked back inside the van and shut the door.

"Don't say anything. I know. I was so busy with the van and the map I forgot to do the research okay?"

Nero shrugged but the look on his face said that he'd be bringing it up later.

Driving though a gate, they entered an area that looked like a cross between a caravan park and a refugee camp. The various vehicles were neatly spaced out and lined up but there were too many battered looking people and the all too familiar air of anxiety hung about any group of survivors even when they did their best to keep a brave face.

Picking an open space next to a lorry, Kieran was in the middle of parking the van when the worried quiet was broken by an angry shout.

"YOU'RE NOT MY DAD SO GET STUFFED!"

A second later one of the lorry's back doors was violently flung open and a teenage boy wearing a bandana around his head and a gi over jeans and a t-shirt that looked slightly too big for him jumped out and stormed off. A youngish looking man in a suit with shoulder length hair that was almost as luridly red as Kieran's jumped out after him.

"Damon, come back!"

"Sod off!"

The teenager, now identified as Damon, broke into a run and vanished behind a coach covered in corrugated iron and sheet metal. The man looked like he was going to follow him, but paused, looked back at the lorry and then in the direction Damon had gone before walking back to the lorry with an expression of utter misery on his face.

Kieran shook his head.

"What a drama."

Nero didn't reply, he was too busy putting his sling on.

"You don't have to wear that thing you know."

"We're only staying until tomorrow. It's not worth the trouble that'll happen if I don't wear it."

"Fair enough, but I think you're being too self-conscious. The whole world's changed, people should be able to handle someone with a weird arm."

"They should, but they usually aren't. I'm going to have a look around. You stay with the van."

"Fine."

Sling and glove in place, the demon hunter walked off between the rows of vehicles. Kieran watched him go then tried to think of something to do. The sleeping girl in the back, and his unwillingness to wake her greatly reduced his options. Getting out of the van, he walked around a bit to stretch his legs, before opening the back door of the van. Inside, Molly was still out cold, curled up into a position that would undoubtedly leave her stiff when he awoke, one hand resting on her crossbow. Retrieving a couple of blankets, Kieran covered her over with one, tensing when she stirred in her sleep and relaxing when he remained unshot, before slinging the other over his shoulder and pulling himself onto the van's roof.  
From his new vantage point, he could see the extent of the hedge from hell. It was impressive. Kieran wasn't much good at judging distances but it was big enough to surround all the buildings plus a number of large fields. Either there was more than one magic user in the area or the one he'd seen had a hell of a lot of clout. To his surprise, he heard mooing coming from the farm. Most livestock had ended up as monster food within the first few days, like most people Kieran hadn't seen fresh milk for months (meat had been slightly more plentiful as people were starting to see which of the monsters were edible). Making a mental note to go and see if he could trade anything in his stash for a pint or two , he spread out the folded in half blanket and lay down, head pillowed by his hands as he stared up at the churning sky.

Once you got past the sheer wrongness of the colour and everything associated with it, it wasn't that bad to look at it. In fact, the shifting red clouds and shadows had a similar effect to a lava lamp. Kieran spent several minutes zoned out and trying to spot patterns and pictures in the ever changing redness, before getting board and climbing back down again. Putting the blanket back in its place, he got out the tiny camping stove which he'd found on one of the scavenging trips, lit it and put some water on to boil, before going to dig out one of the carefully hidden boxes of teabags. When in doubt, make tea.

The teabags were in his hand when he noticed that he was being watched. Looking up he saw Molly looking at him warily. He smiled.

"Hey. Fancy a cuppa?"

"Oh lord yes."

Smiling slightly at the power of tea, Kieran produced two mugs from one storage box and got sugar and a tin of evaporated milk from another. Molly watched him for a moment longer before getting up and moving to the doorway, blanket around her shoulders and crossbow in hand.

"You've got everything haven't you?"

Kieran shrugged.

"Not really. I used to have scavenger duty at the last place we were at and I made a point of pocketing anything that I thought might be handy."

"How big are your pockets?"

Kieran chuckled.

"Nero's asked me the same thing. You should've seen the look on his face the first time I started emptying my pockets after a trip out and ended up producing a small mountain of stuff."

The water reached boiling point and Kieran grabbed the pan pulling double duty as a kettle and teapot and dropped in a solitary teabag. At Molly's questioning look he shrugged.

"Gotta make it last."

"Hey, is that tea I can smell?"

Looking up, Kieran saw a man climb out of the cab of the lorry and walk towards them and sized him up. Aged about forty, average height, a little on the stocky side, clothes had seen better days, messy hair and stubble, bandaged arm, large, blood spotted dressing tapped to his cheek and a friendly grin. No weapons other than a knife. Kieran nodded at him.

"Yeah."

The man looked at the pan longingly.

"I haven't had a cup of tea in weeks."

Kieran looked thoughtful for a moment then smiled.

"I think there might be enough for three. Get a mug."

As it turned out, there was enough for three less than full cups, and rather weak milky ones at that. Never the less, they were appreciated. The tea also had the desired effect as a social lubricant and by the time the man, who had introduced himself as Steve, had finished his cup, Kieran had found out that the lorry was Steve's, well, by default anyway, and that Damon had a brother and sister, that he used to be the middle child prior to a Halloween triggered age-up which had abruptly dumped him in the middle of puberty, which went a long way towards explaining his temper. Their mum was gone and their dad had been replaced. The replacement was the red headed guy, who had the rather daft name of Spirit Albarn, was desperate to find the daughter he'd had before he found himself in this world, and was trying his best to take care of the kids he'd been landed with plus a trio of orphans that they'd picked up. Steve's opinion of him was that he was a 'good bloke but a bit of a prat.'

"Thanks for the tea. I..."

Steve was interrupted by a bang as something hit the inside of the lorry.

"Hey, I was drinking that," shouted a voice with a noticeable North London accent.

"Not in front of the kids, you irresponsible drunken freak!"

"Fine, I'll go somewhere else then."

A scruffy, dark haired man in his twenties jumped out of the lorry and wandered off.

"Who was that?"

"Mason. I picked him and Ruben up a couple of days after everything went to hell. It's just as well that we found the others the next day; Ruben was only a couple of months old, I don't have a clue about kids and Mason is usually drunk. It's a bloody miracle that he managed to keep the poor mite alive after he rescued him. Spirit's a prat, but at least he knows what he's doing, well, with the little 'uns anyway."

"Do they argue a lot?"

"Yeah. Gives me a bloody headache. Anyway, I'd best be off, someone's got to the voice of reason around here. Thanks again for the tea."

After Steve left, Kieran turned his attention to Molly. The girl seemed to holding up okay but experience had taught him that shellshock could make itself known without warning. He'd seen it in the Fort, a guy sitting at the next table during lunch had just suddenly started crying like a baby. He wasn't sure what he'd do if Molly did the same but until then he'd just keep acting normal.

"Fancy having something to eat?"

"Is the Pope a catholic?"

Kieran nodded and went to the storage box that contained the food.

"Tinned ravioli okay?"

"Yeah."

The tinned pasta was almost done when they heard the scream. When others followed it, Kieran retained just enough presence of mind to turn off the stove before grabbing his gun. Nearby, people started running.

A/N: If anyone manages to ID all the non-OC's in this chapter I'll be impressed.

Sorry that not much has happened in this chapter, I seem to have hit a wall in that I am somewhat stumped with regards to possible encounters and monsters (mainly because a lot of what I read/watch is rather obscure so I doubt that anyone would be interested) and I've been having a hard time fending off the curse of authorial self-doubt. If anyone's got any ideas that they'd like to see used and which might kickstart my imagination then bring them on. I'll credit you for them and everything. In fact, I'll be happy if people just review. Knowing that someone's actually reading this thing does wonders for my creativity.


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